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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 37. Compromise Leadership - 2. The Vulnerability of the Negro Leader - 3. Impersonal Motives
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Chapter 37. Compromise Leadership
2. The Vulnerability of the Negro Leader
In the protective Negro community much goes on which the white man
does not know about. The reality of this reserve is well known to Negroes,
and it is coming to effective use in the Negro church, the Negro school and
the Negro press. But the Negro leader has stepped out of the anonymity,
and the eyes of influential white people are focused on him. He has to watch
his moves carefully in order not to fall out with them. This would end his
usefulness to the Negro community as a go-between. And it would spell
his own ruin, as the whites have a close control on his income and his status.
In the South practically all Negro teachers—from the lonely teacher in
a dilapidated one-room school house isolated off somewhere in a rural
county, to the president of a Negro college—are appointed by white leaders
and they hold their position under the threat of being dismissed if they
become troublesome.® The Negro church is often claimed to be the one
independent Negro institution founded entirely upon the organizational
efforts and the economic contributions of the Negro people themselves.
But the observer finds that to an amazing extent there are ties of small
mortgage loans and petty contributions from whites which restrict the
freedom of the preachers. Negro professionals and Negro businessmen,
operating in the tight areas behind the caste wall, are also dependent on
the good-will, the indulgence, and sometimes the assistance of whites. The
same is even more true of the successful Negro landowner, who in most
Southern areas meets the envy of poor whites, and so needs the protection
of the substantial white people in the community. And for all local Negro
leaders, it is perhaps not the economic sanction that is most important,
but the sanction of physical punishment, destruction of property and
banishment.
In a sense, every ambitious and successful Negro is more dependent
upon the whites than is his caste fellow in the lower class. He is more
conspicuous. He has more to lose and he has more to gain. If he becomes
aggressive, he is adding to all the odds he labors under, the risk of losing
the good-will and protection of the influential whites. The Southern whites
have many ways of keeping this prospect constantly before his mind. He
knows he has to ^^go slow.”
3. Impersonal Motives
This should not be construed to imply that there is a crude self-seeking
opportunism on the part of Negro leaders or a cynical despotism on the
part of the whites. The power situation is conducive to the creation of both,
and the standards of power morals are low. But even the most right-minded
ambitious Negro would be foolish not to realize that he has to keep in line
* See Chapter 4X» Section i.
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