The Willie Lynch Letter and Other Controversial Texts and Ideas That Have Influenced Black Thought

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The Talented Tenth

The infamous intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois promoted the idea of developing a vanguard in African-American society as a way to promote progress. He expressed this idea in his essay entitled “The Talented Tenth,” published in 1903. He believed in cultivating the leadership skills of one in ten Black men through education and civic engagement in order to lift up the whole race with the expectation that they would reinvest in their communities.

“The Ne-gro Race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education then, among Ne-groes, must first of all deal with the “Talented Tenth.” It is the problem of developing the best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the worst.”

The idea of creating a leadership to lead the masses is nothing new. The Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin embraced the model of a vanguard to lead society.  Today, the debate continues: are Black success stories doing enough to reinvest in their communities? It would be interesting to see how DuBois would weigh in.

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