CHAPTER 8
The Crisis of Leadership
The Debate over Means and Ends
In the nineteenth century the problem that faced the Afro-American community was how to destroy the institution of slavery. In the twentieth century the question was how to achieve equality. Frederick Douglass had been in the vanguard of the fight to overthrow the peculiar institution. Later, he was among the first to realize that Emancipation had not solved all the problems. It was his belief that the forces of racism and indifference were responsible for relegating the ex-slave to a second-class status. When the Federal Government terminated Reconstruction without providing his people with the tools for competing in American society, Douglass's disappointment was severe.
At the turn of the century the focus of the problems facing Afro-Americans had changed. Slavery had been abolished, but not race prejudice. The elimination of this scourge became the basis for a new drive. Douglass, who for a half century had been looked upon as the spokesman for his people, was too old to tackle the task of ending segregation and prejudice based on race. When he died early in 1895, the Afro-American community was left without leadership capable of uniting the diverse elements within the movement. The pressing need was for black men and women to escape physical violence and to find acceptance with dignity, and it couldn't wait.
However, within this community there were many who were capable of leadership. What was lacking were the instruments of leadership. Money, power, and the press, for the most part, were in the hands of whites who had concluded that the ex-slave would have to solve his own problems. What this meant was that the Whites wanted to be left in peace. Dozens of Afro-Americans, however, were not content to accept the degrading position which had been assigned to them. Utilizing the limited resources within their own community, new leadership evolved and began to debate the issues of the day. Before Emancipation the problems had seemed simple. All attention was focused on the abolition of slavery, and the only point of controversy centered on the means by which it should be achieved. But segregation and discrimination were not so easily defined and attacked. The debates which ensued widened to include disagreement over both means and ends. A vocal minority, discouraged by the emasculating effects of discrimination, believed that they should withdraw from white society altogether. Some of them wanted to return to Africa and to assist its inhabitants in their liberation from European imperialism. They planned to create an independent African nation. Others, while not wanting to leave America, still wanted to withdraw from white society into a world of their own choosing and making.
The majority, however, insisted that the African immigrant, like those from Europe, had the right to all the privileges of being American. Some of them wanted to join the white society, accept its Euro-American cultural values, forget their past, and assimilate into the mainstream of American life. Still others, while wanting to find their place within the American nation, insisted that the country must be transformed into a genuinely pluralistic society. While they wanted to be integrated into the nation, they did not want to join the white society. Instead of assimilating into Anglo-Saxon culture, they wanted American civilization to become multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and highly fluid.
The means which were proposed to achieve these differing ends were highly diverse. Some argued that the ex-slave must first demonstrate his readiness to be accepted within white society. Others claimed that they need only demand the rights which were legally theirs. In order to do this they planned to make aggressive use of the press and the courts. Mass organization to achieve economic and political pressure was also recommended as another technique.
There were scores of leaders representing dozens of differing positions. In the first half of the twentieth century, the spectrum was limited almost exclusively to the advocacy of nonviolent techniques. Four of these leaders will be discussed below. Their ideas present a broad overview of the concepts to be found within the Afro-American community. Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, and A. Philip Randolph represented a wide variety of approaches, their ideas forming the total spectrum of the thrust for remaking the black role in white society.