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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 34. Accommodating Leadership - 1. Leadership and Caste - 2. The Interest of Southern Whites and Negroes with Respect to Negro Leadership
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CHAPTER 34
ACCOMMODATING LEADERSHIP
I. Leadership and Caste
The Negro world conforms closely to the general American pattern
just described. In fact, the caste situation—^by holding down participation
and integration of Negroes—has the effect of exaggerating the pattern.
We base our typology of Negro leadership upon the two extreme policies
of behavior on behalf of the Negro as a subordinated caste: accommodation
and frotest. The first attitude is mainly static; the second is mainly dynamic.
In this chapter we shall ignore almost entirely the dynamic attitude of
protest and discuss the intercaste relation in terms of social statics. The
object of study here is thus the role of the accommodating Negro leader.
Our analysis will approach fuller realism only when we, in later chapters,
bring in also the protest motive. This reservation should be held in mind
when reading this chapter.
Accommodation is undoubtedly stronger than protest, particularly in the
South where the structure of caste is most pervasive and unyielding. In a
sense, accommodation is historically the ^^natural” or the ^^normal” behavior
of Negroes and, even at present, the most ‘‘realistic” one. But it is practi-
cally never wholehearted in any American Negro, however well adjusted
to his situation he seems to be. Every Negro has some feeling of protest
against caste, and every Negro has some sort of conflict with the white
world. Some Negroes are primarily driven by the protest motive. Social
changes which affect Negro attitudes—for example, the development of
Negro education, caste isolation, class stratification, and the northward
migration—are all giving the protest motive increasing weight, at the same
time as the economic, political, judicial, and ideological changes in American
society tend to give an ever wider scope for Negro protest. Both main
motives—or any intermediate one composed of a blend of these two—have
their main origin in, and take their specific character from, the caste
situation.
2. The Interest of Southern Whites and Negroes with
Respect to Negro Leadership
The white caste has an obvious interest in trying to have accommodating
Negro leaders to help them control the Negro group. Under no circum-
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