The educated Negro and his mission

by W. S. Scarborough

This idea of service to the race is peculiarly the mission of the educated Negro. In no other way can higher education be justified for the race; and Dr. Mayo has well denominated the field before him as a “high plateau of opportunity.”

It is a part of his mission to take up the leadership of the race. The day for ignorant Negro leaders is rapidly passing. One of the first services to be rendered along this line is to insist that seeming shall no longer be allowed to pass for being. No matter where it strikes or whom it strikes, he must help strip away pretense from the vain and shallow, unveil those who masquerade under borrowed, empty, high-sounding titles—those whose vociferous tones, glib tongues and unlimited audacity seek to pose their owners as learned ones under the thinnest veneer. This uncovering of shams, exposure of frauds will save the race many a gibe and sneer.

When there is more of genuine scholarship among members of the race there will be a different attitude assumed towards it. But as long as the Negro prefers to construe owlish looks as wisdom, to bow down to clam like silence as profound philosophy, to stand agape over blatant mouthings as eloquence, and to measure mental calibre by bodily avoirdupois, he not only gives evidence of weakness in a lack of sound discrimination, but he subjects the entire race to consequent criticism and contempt.

It is to our shame, however, that we are forced to admit that just such shams are so often on “dress parade” before the world that by them the race is too frequently largely judged, and to its detriment. The day has come when the brain of the race must both direct its brawn and expose its brass. Ignorance and charlatanism will seek enlightenment or retreat only when intelligence and learning make a masterly array for leadership.

This mission of leadership has many phases. The educated Negro leads by making himself felt, unconsciously, in many ways. Dr. Angell of Michigan University has truly declared that a man who has any claims to scholarship or learning cannot hoard its blessings as a miser hoards gold, that he can hardly enjoy it without in some degree sharing its blessings with others, that its very nature is to be outgoing and effusive. Because of this truth the Negro scholar is an inspiration to his own people who need just such an object lesson as himself. The race gains self-respect as it sees one of its own on higher planes. It gathers higher aims by the respect it instinctively accords him and its pride is stimulated along higher levels. It is thus that colored men of learning—men of high ideals—are far more influential through the simple contact of their presence than are those of another race.

It is admitted that the race is cursed with not only pretenders but with idlers. So is every other race, but the Negro can least afford it just now. It may be true that some of these hold diplomas indicating completion of courses of higher studies, but they are not really the educated ones, and the fact of their existence does not prove the uselessness of the educated Negro or the failure of higher education for the race. It is to our credit that comparatively few, who have struggled through the long years that lead to culture and scholarship, can be found to give enemies of the race an opportunity for assault from that quarter. Figures will not lie, though they sometimes may stagger one; and statistics show us that the college-bred Negro is far from giving a record for uselessness.

I have said that the educated Negro (and I include both sexes) leads by the inspiration that is radiated. Much as we regret it we cannot refuse to face the fact that grows upon us daily—the fact that there are too many Negro youths to-day, who seem lacking in ambition, in aspiration, in either fixedness or firmness of purpose. We have too many dudes whose ideal does not rise above the possession of a new suit, a cane, a silk hat, patent leather shoes, a cigarette and a good time—too many in every sense the “sport of the gods.” It is the mission of the educated Negro to help change this—to see that thoughtlessness gives place to seriousness. Ruskin spoke a basic truth when he said that youth is no time for thoughtlessness; and it is especially applicable to the youth of a race that has its future to make. The Negro who stands on the higher rounds of the ladder of education is pre-eminently fitted for this work of inspiration—helping to mold and refine, “working out the beast” and seeing that the “ape and tiger die,” rescuing from vice and all that the term implies.

He will help to form classes of society where culture and refinement, high thinking and high living, in its proper sense, draw the line—classes made up of what one denominates an “aristocracy of intelligence and character that protects the masses from their foes without and from their own folly and unrighteousness.”

This same influence is to be exercised over those young men and women fresh from college who have two things to learn—that the knowledge they possess is neither altogether new, nor is it patented by them, and further, that one great danger lies ever before those of any race who have won great distinction in college halls—that of total extinction out in the world.

Nothing but true scholarship can lead these young people to take proper measure of self and estimate the things about them at their true value as they stand at that precarious place, the beginning of a career. There they need the warning of Omar emphasized to “waste not their hour.” There is plenty of active leadership for this Afro-American scholar as a part of his mission. There are books to be written; experiments to be made; conditions to be analyzed; ways and means invented to reach ends; and we need Negro specialists in all these fields. Great economic results will never come to us, nor will a truly great standing be ours as long as we are content to leave our affairs to the sole direction, however wise or kindly intended, of another race.