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An American Dilemma
1134
leaders are chosen and permitted to exercise Influence. It is apparent to the observer that
the white caste controls* the appointment and eventual dismissal of a number of Negro
leaders and greatly promotes or hinders the rise of most of the others. This Is partly
a matter of tradition, but to a greater extent it corresponds to real interests of the
whites. There are also, of course, other forces in action: partly “objective” ones, such
as individual merit, Negro class monopolies, and the factor of change, and partly
subjective attitudes held by the Negro masses.
The way to study this important aspect of our problem is to analyze—against the
background of a survey of the entire social milieu in which Negro leaders develop and
operate—the factors actually responsible for the elevation of a selected sample of
Negroes to prominence in church, education, business, politics, and also in vice and
racketeering. This would, incidentally, because of the close relation between class and
leadership in the Negro community, also reveal much of the internal dynamics of the
Negro class structure.
We might be allowed to illustrate the type of study suggested by formulating a
number of questions, some of which have been given a conjectural answer in Chapters
34 to 37. How does the selective mechanism operate differently in the various fields of
social activities? in rural and urban districts? in the South and the North? on the local
and the national plane? What are the trends of change?
To what extent, specifically, and by what means, do white caste interests interfere?
What are the specific interests in Negro leadership of white politicians, planters, mer-
chants, bankers, manufacturers, philanthropists, in a given community? What rewards
do they hold out for Negro leaders and what effective demands do they make upon
them? How tractable must those leaders be in order to become successful? What
demands upon the Negro leaders, and with what effectiveness, are raised by the Negro
community? How is a compromise struck between submission and aggression, accommo-
dation and protest? What are the chances under various circumstances for a really
independent Negro leadership? In other words, we should want a full analysis of the
social controls operating on the individual Negro who is attempting to rise to prom-
inence.
What effect do the various influences on the selective social mechanism determining
the rise of Negro leaders have on the racial, social and political attitudes of the Negro
masses? What is the effect of the masses—through their partial influence on the
selective mechanism and as the object for leadership influence—on the behavior and
the popular theories of the leaders? How far down in the Negro class structure do
various Negro leaders reach by their influence and from how far down in the masses
do influences emanate upon the leaders? What influence do Negro leaders have on
white leaders with whom they are in immediate contact?
These questions open up the problems of the interrelations between functioning
Negro leaders and the white community leaders, on the one hand, and between Negro
leaders and Negro followers, on the other hand. More specifically we want to know,
how much influence and what sort of influence do those prominent Negroes have? In
what circles of the white and the Negro population is the influence exerted? What
deliveries to the whites and to the Negroes do they promise, and which do they actually
make.^
How does the Negro leader operate? To what extent and how does he utilize the
white and the Negro press, the Negro organizations and the various “fronts”? To what
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