The Talented Tenth Du Bois Analysis

Du Bois believed in achieving equality through racial uplift and protest lead by the elite members of the black community, referred to as the talented tenth. Du Bois advocated black political activism above all else because he believed that in order to have economic and social rights there must be the political rights to defend them. In his Niagara movement speech Du Bois calls upon his brethren to take political action. “After emancipation came a new group of educated and gifted leaders: Langston, Bruce and Elliot, Greener, Williams and Payne. Through political organization, historical and polemic writing and moral regeneration, these men strove to uplift their people. It is the fashion of to-day to sneer at them and to say that with freedom Negro …show more content…
“Can the masses of the Negro people be in any possible way more quickly raised than by the effort and example of this aristocracy of talent and character? 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. The Talented Tenth rises and pulls all that are worth the saving up to their vantage ground. This is the history of human progress; and the two historic mistakes which have hindered that progress were the thinking first that no more could ever rise save the few already risen; or second, that it would better the uprisen to pull the risen down” (The Talented Tenth, 1903). This quote emphasizes the role of the talented tenth and denotes the fear of the bottom harming or threatening the top’s civil liberties. The idea that culture filters from the top down, plays into the belief that the talented tenth are responsible for uplifting the rest of the race. Du Bois denounces the idea that there is no more room for the risen and to take away the fear that inhibits others from helping those that have yet to