The Migration of the Talented Tenth

Woodson, Carter G. "The Migration of the Talented Tenth." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 371-88. Print.

My last few posts have focused mostly on how educated blacks have been ostracized by common black workers, but this article brings up how white men relate to educated blacks. I honestly feel bad for the educated black people during this time period; no one was willing to see them as their equals. It’s pretty obvious that this played a large part in the poor conditions of black men and women all across America, not just in the South. If the working-class black men and women had recognized educated black men as their equals in race and want, racial equality would have been a more palpable objective. However, it seems like the most any population of black people could do –in the South as well as the North – was to keep their heads down and survive. It’s depressing that the idea of “whiteness” as some kind of infectious disease was so prominent in the minds of blacks during this time; if people had opened their eyes to the hardship of their fellow black men and women, educated or not, and worked together to better the condition of the race, a lot more progress would have been made. As it was, however, blacks were pitted against other blacks simply because one was more “white” than another. How depressing.