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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 39. Negro Improvement and Protest Organizations - 13. Negro Strategy
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Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 853
be judged by the criterion of its efficacy in contributing to the ultimate
extermination of caste in America. The interests of the Negro feofle in
winning unabridged citizenship in American society are taken for granted
in the American Creed. We are further assuming, as an evident matter of
fact, that the power situation is such in America that Negroes can never
hope to break down the caste wall except with the assistance of white people.
Indeed, the actual power situation makes it an obvious Negro interest andy
consequently a general American interest to engage as many white groups
as possible as allies in the struggle against caste.
It is a peculiar trait of much of the discussion of Negro concerted action
in America that it usually proceeds upon the assumption that one unified
Negro movement is the desideratum.^^- This assumption is unrealistic and
impractical for several reasons. For one thing, a unified Negro movement
would not appeal to the Negro masses except by an emotional, race-
chauvinistic protest appeal. Such a movement, even if it were staged
differently from the Garvey movement, would probably estrange the
greater part not only of the Negro intellectuals, but also of the rest of the
Negro upper class. It would definitely estrange practically all white groups.
By this we do not mean that the racial appeal should not be used at all.
It has to be used, but with caution. Still less do we mean that the Negro
masses should not be appealed to. They should, but by movements with
specific and limited practical aims. If, because of these reservations, the
Negro masses are not reached within the near future to the same extent as
would be possible in a race-chauvinistic, unified Negro movement, that is a
price which will have to be paid.
When we look over the field of Negro protest and betterment organiza-
tions, we find that only when Negroes have collaborated with whites have
organizations been built up which have had any strength and which have
been able to do something practical. Except for the March-on-Washington
movement—which has a temporary and limited purpose and which, in
addition, is backed by the regular organizations—all purely Negro organ-
izations have been disappointments. There are several explanations for
this. One is that Negroes on the whole are poor. The completely Negro
organizations have usually not had the sort of financial backing which has
been available to interracial organizations. Another explanation is the lack
of political culture in the traditions of the Negro people, because they have
been subdued for generations. Political culture is one of the last accomplish-
ments of any civilization, and there is not too much of it in this great and
heterogeneous country as a whole, particularly on the state and municipal
levels where Negroes have most of their political contacts. A third explana-
tion is the existence of the interracial organizations. They have naturallj^
drawn to themselves much of the individual talent for political leadership
in the Negro people. A fourth, and basic, explanation is the obvious fact in
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