The Talented Tenth

“Negro leadership, therefore, sought from the first to rid the race of this awful incubus that it might make way for natural selection and the survival of the fittest.”

This sentence is Du Bois’s most direct statement related to Social Darwinism. He argues that the “awful incubus” of slavery had to be eliminated so that African Americans could participate in normal social relations, which are conceived as operating by “natural selection and the survival of the fittest.” By alluding to well-known sociological terms, Du Bois can explain in a few words his understanding of society.

“After emancipation came a new group of educated and gifted leaders: Langston, Bruce and Eliot, Greener, Williams and Payne.”

Throughout the essay, Du Bois alludes to individuals or institutions to show that an educated elite was operative in the past and is still operative at the time the essay was written. The assumption is that the names alone will be familiar to the reader and will help convey the argument.

“Who are to-day guiding the work of the Negro people? The ‘exceptions’ of course.”

Du Bois uses a rhetorical question to drive home his point that the African American community is led by an elite. Whether recognized or not, leadership is provided by exceptional persons, nearly all college educated.

“Is it fair, is it decent, is it Christian to ignore these facts of the Negro problem, to belittle such aspiration, to nullify such leadership and seek to crush these people back into the mass out of which by toil and travail, they and their fathers have raised themselves?”

This compound rhetorical question gives the reader a sense of Du Bois’s outrage that the African American elite is being crushed. If the talented tenth are not allowed to blossom, they will be crushed back into the “mass”—what Du Bois elsewhere calls the “Average.”

“Was there ever a nation on God’s fair earth civilized from the bottom upward? Never; it is, ever was and ever will be from the top downward that culture filters.”

This argument makes the case that all human progress is due to exceptional individuals—the talented tenth of the essay’s title. If a racial or ethnic group is unable to train and support an elite, the group will be especially handicapped. Du Bois argues that this is the situation of the African American community in America in 1903. Du Bois’s use of a rhetorical question emphasizes his rejection of “bottom upward” progress.

“How then shall the leaders of a struggling people be trained and the hands of the risen few strengthened? There can be but one answer: The best and most capable of their youth must be schooled in the colleges and universities of the land.”

Du Bois argues that the basic requirement for leadership is a college education. Without the tools conveyed through higher education, African Americans (or any group) will not be able to thrive in a world in which “survival of the fittest” and “natural selection” are social realities. This is another example of Du Bois’s use of rhetorical questions.

“Where ought they to have begun to build? At the bottom, of course, quibbles the mole with his eyes in the earth.”

This quote combines a rhetorical question with sarcasm, expressing Du Bois’s disdain for those who advocate prioritizing educating the masses. Those who advocate “the bottom” (such as Booker T. Washington) are moles whose eyes are blinded because they are looking down.

“It need hardly be argued that the Negro people need social leadership more than most groups; that they have no traditions to fall back upon, no long-established customs, no strong family ties, no well defined social classes.”

African American society lacks the long-standing elites of Europe and America. Therefore, college education for the African American talented tenth is vital. Without such education, African American society will languish.

“And here it is that the broad culture of college work has been of peculiar value. Knowledge of life and its wider meaning, has been the point of the Negro’s deepest ignorance, and the sending out of teachers whose training has not been simply for bread winning, but also for human culture, has been of inestimable value in the training of these men.”

Du Bois’s argument is based on his belief in the value of a college education—not only for “bread winning” but also for “human culture.” Ideally, a college education transmits culture and knowledge of the wider meaning of life. This aspect of a college education—the transmission of society’s cultures and beliefs—is a vital component in equipping a modern elite.

“Consequently it often happens that persons arguing for or against certain systems of education for Negroes, have these controversies in mind and miss the real question at issue. The main question, so far as the Southern Negro is concerned, is: What under the present circumstance, must a system of education do in order to raise the Negro as quickly as possible in the scale of civilization?”

Other educational ideals exist besides Du Bois’s vision of a college-educated elite. The chief rival to this vision is Washington’s trade/vocational vision, which is more democratic in the sense that it is geared toward African Americans in general, not just the talented tenth. Du Bois argues that the most productive method of improving African American society is to prioritize the education of the exceptional members of the group. Again, Du Bois makes effective use of a rhetorical question as a means of persuasion.

“There must be teachers, and teachers of teachers, and to attempt to establish any sort of a system of common and industrial school training, without first (and I say first advisedly) without first providing for the higher training of the very best teachers, is simply throwing your money to the winds.”

This is a classic case of repetition, here triply emphasized using italics. In considering different philosophies of education, Du Bois makes his priorities clear.

“Who guides and determines the education which he receives in his world? His teachers are the group-leaders of the Negro people—physicians and clergymen, the trained fathers and mothers, the influential and forceful men about him of all kinds; here it is, if at all, that the culture of the surrounding world trickles through and is handed on by the graduates of the higher schools.”

Another example of Du Bois’s use of a rhetorical question. Note that this question is similar to the earlier questions but that the answer is now preeminently the teacher, who in turn teaches others.

“The Negro race in the South needs teachers to-day above all else.”

One of many assertions in Du Bois’s persuasive essay. Since Du Bois views teachers as the most important element of the talented tenth, this statement represents the ultimate persuasive goal of the essay.