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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 37. Compromise Leadership - 5. The Double Role - 6. Negro Leadership Techniques
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Chapter 37. Compromise Leadership 773
deceived. The satisfaction when some member of the community has suc-
ceeded in ^‘pulling the wool” over the eyes of trusting white men is appar-
ent. If deception is achieved, the Negroes seem to enjoy their leaders’
spreading the flattery thick when approaching the. whites. This is the most
concealed, the almost perverted, form of the Negro protest.
6. Negro Leadership Techniques
This situation is likely to make the Negro leader sophisticated and
^Vise.” He becomes intensely conscious of all his moves. One Southern
Negro leader outlined the most effective technique to use, when approach-
ing influential white people to get them to do something for the Negro
community, in the following words:
Don’t emphasize the Negro’s ‘‘right” . . . don’t fress for anything . . . make him
feel he’s a big man, get to other white men to make him want to avoid seeming small,
and you can make him jump through the barrel. You can make him a friend or a
rattlesnake, depending on your approach.*^
Another Negro leader told us:
I’m a respectable citizen, but when I try to get my rights I do so in a way that
will not be obnoxious, and not in a radical way. I don’t believe in radicalism. We ask
for things, but never demand. When I’m in Rome, 1 burn Roman candles . . . but
I don’t “Uncle Tom.”*
A Negro editor in another Southern city explained:
If a Negro goes so far as to make an enemy of the white man who has the power
he is foolish. You can’t hit a man in the mouth and expect him to loan you money.
By all means keep in with the man who hires and pays you. A man wouldn’t be head
of a big concern if he weren’t a smart man, and a smart man will always react to facts.
My approach is to the fellow on top because he is going to have to take care of me
and I must work with him—he has the stick.®
The successful Negro leader becomes a consummate manipulator. Get-
ting the white man to do what he wants becomes a fine art. This is what is
called "playing ’possum.” The Negro leader gets satisfaction out of his
performance and feels pride in his skill in flattering, beguiling, and out-
witting the white man. The South is full of folklore and legend on this
aspect of Negro leadership.^® And the stories are told among whites too,
just as are stories about clever children or animals.
Every person in this game has a double standard of understanding and
behavior. The white leaders know that they are supposed to be outwitted
by the subservient but sly Negro leaders. In the Southern aristocratic tradi-
tion they are supposed not only to permit and to enjoy the flattery of the
Negro leaders but also to let them get away with something for themselv^cs
and for their group. It is the price due the Negro leaders for their adaptive
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