Racial Uplift

Quonnetta CalhounSociology of Urban PovertyProfessor Covert

Racial Uplift

The ideology of racial uplift, the idea that educated blacks are responsible for the welfare of the majority of the race, was a response to the assault on African American civil and political rights in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (Gaines, ?)

“What do the haves, owe the have nots?”

Post Emancipation

….the struggle of African Americans to forge and maintain a positive identity in a U.S. society that reduced their existence to the singularly alienating phrase “the Negro problem.” (Gaines, ?)

Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. DuBois

•Accommodationist view

•Promoted self-help and individual effort

•Believer of industrial education (carpentry, farming, engineering, etc.) as a means of economic advancement for the race

•Urged blacks to accept discrimination temporarily

•Gradual gain of social and political equality; this will come as blacks prove themselves

•Praised by whites – considered “reasonable” in his methods

•Founder and principal of Tuskegee Institute; African Americans were taught basic education and practical skills to earn a living

Booker T. Washington1856-1915

Every man for himself & God for us all

(Self-help)

My brother’s keeper

• Radical view/Politically militant

• First Black man to graduate Harvard with a doctoral degree

• Opposed Washington’s vocational training strategy; advocated for liberal arts education in the hopes of producing black leaders

• “Talented Tenth”- believed in training the top 10% of the race, who will then lead and uplift the masses

• Called for immediate political action and social equality

• One of the founders of the NAACP

W.E.B DuBois 1868-1963

The mis-education of the Negro

Carter G. Woodson,1933

• Critical view of the educational system

• Eurocentric education “culturally indoctrinated” blacks

• Indoctrinate - to teach (someone) to fully accept the ideas, opinions, and beliefs of a particular group and to not consider other ideas, opinions, and beliefs

• Educated Negroes moved away from the masses, do not use education to help solve community issues

• The educational system of a country is worthless unless it accomplishes the task of revolutionizing the social order for the good of the community.

• “To educate the Negro we must find out exactly what his background is, what he is today, what his possibilities are, and how to begin with him as he is and make him a better individual of the kind that he is.”

Things that stagnate racial uplift

 

•Education; (as per Carter G. Woodson) or lack of

•Media

•Politics (lack of black political representation)

•Racism/White Privilege

•Structural Violence(s)

•Cycle of Oppression

•Class division (?)

•Intra-racial divide

•Oppressed thinking/behavior

Things that promote racial uplift

•Education: African American Studies programs “If you knew better you’d do better”

•Politics; election of the 1st black President of the USA (?)

•Supporting black owned businesses: For us by us

• Black activists: Activism/Organization

•YOU!

Contemporary Leaders

Dr. Marc Lamont Hill1978

Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life…

• Hip Hop Intellectual/Educator/ AuthorActivist Scholar/Political Commentator/

• founding board member of My5th; a non-profit organization devoted to educating youth about their legal rights and responsibilities

• Uses Hip Hop culture to identify intersections between youth, popular culture, and pedagogy

• America’s top 30 Black leaders under 30 years old, 2005 Ebony Magazine

• America’s 100 most influential Black leaders, 2011 Ebony Magazine

Crisis in black leadership

Summary• Lack of black leadership? Arguable.None this generation as powerful as Washington, DuBois, MLK or X Perhaps the approach has just changed

• “THEY” hold us back & WE hold ourselves back

• Woodson’s “The Mis-education of the Negro” still relevant today

• I agree with certain aspects of both Washington & DuBois’s philosophies

• The uplift of African Americans will always be an issue as long as there systems in place that limit us

• African Americans have made great advancements in political action and social justice.

• Much more for blacks to attain; we’ve come a long way but have a long way to go

• Personal responsibility as well as a helping hand from those in positions of power

After Obama?????????