grades cannot read nor do math at grade level.
The conclusion is that the brightest lights throw into sharp relief the shadows. Thus, my message to the New Talented Tenth is that you cannot concentrate on the best of what we have done. You must focus on the worst and determine what we need to do. Your obligation, your responsibility, your challenge as the New Talented Tenth is to the least of our brothers and sisters – those who cry out this morning for a crust of bread and a morsel of meat.
You cannot use the ladder of opportunity as if it is a fire escape ladder that retracts the minute one person climbs it. You cannot enter the ranks of the elite and then close ranks.
Du Bois would chasten us – that this was not the point of getting an education. This is not about becoming one of the privileged few for its own sake. It is about using the privilege of an education to increase the number beyond the few.
When Du Bois first wrote his essay, the Talented Tenth was criticized for being an elitist idea. And it was. In many ways, it still is.
But the aim – his goal – was profoundly egalitarian and idealistic. He saw that most Blacks in America had been consigned to lives of hardship by unjust circumstances beyond their control. He believed that our race’s best chance for success, for improving its lot was through an elite group of leaders who would go out and use the knowledge, status, and power they had acquired to improve conditions for their brothers and sisters. His argument stopped with the Talented Tenth.
For you, the New Talented Tenth, the goal must be to use those talents to create a talented majority, a talented totality.
That goal, that commitment is what must be rendered unto the Lord for all of the benefits He has given you.
For to whom much is given, much is required.
I have been blessed with the opportunity — the privilege, the honor – to serve in the civil rights struggle as a civil rights lawyer, NAACP Field Secretary in Georgia, Director of the Voter Education Project, Executive Director of the United Negro College Fund, and Chief Executive Officer of the National Urban League.
And, I want to let you in on something this morning – the real motivation for me to serve and to lead happened when I was
About Post Author
