Monday, June 7, 2010

The Failure of negro Leadership

The New York Times printed a revealing article on February 13, 2010 titled “In Black Caucus, A Fund-Raising Powerhouse.” The article discusses the large donations the Congressional Black Caucus receives from corporations, foundations, and wealthy individuals. Moreover, it demonstrates the ongoing intergenerational failure of negro leadership in the United States.

i assert there are three crucial periods in African leadership: 1) the emergence of a ‘free’ northern based leadership in the early 19th century 2) the white appointment of Booker T. Washington as the leader of African America in the late 19th century and 3) the cooptation and incorporation of negro politicians in the post-Black Power era. This essay uses a theoretical framework of domestic colonialism. According to this theory, within a colonized nation, such as Africans in the United States, a portion of the indigenous colonized population is recruited to collaborate with the imperial power.

At the turn 19th century, a free primarily middle class northern African leadership emerged in the United States. At the same time, a new debate among African leaders developed concerning the identity and direction of the African community in the U.S. Unlike previous periods of the movement which advanced militant resistance such as maroons, insurrections, and emigration these leaders began to appeal to the liberal values of the U.S. founding documents and moral uplift. Dr. Leslie Alexander who examines this issue in her new book, African or American?, recently stated on Jazz and Justice radio:

“Black leadership in the 1830s and 1840s embraced a particular political strategy known as moral uplift…which states the way for Black people to gain freedom justice equality citizenship etc. is to present to white society the best possible face of the Black community to convince white people of their humanity and worthiness.”

A few decades later, Booker T. Washington echoed these statements preaching a doctrine of political passivity, moral uplift, and industrial education. Schools who taught industrial education such as Tuskegee Institute were funded by the leading Northern industrialists such as the Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Vanderbilt for the explicit purpose of producing a conservative negro leadership class.

By the late 1960s and 1970s, African leadership in the U.S. boldly moved in the direction of Black Nationalism, Pan Africanism, and Socialism. Unfortunately, due to their uncompromising stance several visionary leaders were assassinated, imprisoned, and forced into exile by the F.B.I.‘s COINTELPRO. During this same period, philanthropic foundations such as the Ford Foundation under the leadership of McGeorge Bundy financed a moderate to conservative negro leadership.

Today, the result are negro leaders such as President Barack Obama and Mayor Adrian Fenty in Washington D.C. Obama received $745 million in campaign financing, more than any other candidate for U.S. President in history. Although he is virtually silent in response to state terrorism against Africans (ex: police brutality), Obama is vocal in the defense of racist Zionist Israel who murders known pacifists delivering aid to poor, colonized people in the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, Fenty who raised $3.9 million as of March for his upcoming mayoral race, breaking his own campaign donation record, promotes privatization of schools (charters) and homeless shelters in the U.S. capitol. Privatization has been shown to assist elites, who financed his campaign, to accumulate more capital.

The utter failure of negro leadership in the U.S. not only affects political leadership but also African America’s most revered civil rights organizations. Although the NAACP was primarily started by white liberal jews and, at one point, was used to watch “negro dissidents“ by the U.S. government during World War I, it is known more for its numerous civil rights victories.

Today they collaborate with companies such as Wells Fargo who target Africans in the U.S. for unaffordable home loans thereby causing one of the single biggest loses of wealth in the African community’s history due to home foreclosures. For example, although the NAACP initially sued the lending company for targeting African borrowers, they later dropped the lawsuit and named Wells Fargo a lead sponsor for their 101st national convention in July of this year. For this and other reasons, in 1920 Harlem radical Hubert Harrison referred to the organization as the National Association for the Advancement of Certain People.


Several scholars such as Jacob Caruthers, Cedric Robinson, and Sterling Stuckey have discussed the intergenerational failure of negro leaders. However, the U.N.I.A. in the 1920s and the Black Power Movement were periods when Africans had an ideologically and financially independent leadership. In the 21st century the African Freedom Movement must adopt three principles espoused by the esteemed African freedom fighter Ella Baker: 1) working class leadership 2) youth leadership and 3) participatory democracy. These three principles can help us to overcome our current crisis of negro leadership and move in the direction of national liberation and self determination.


Alexander, Leslie. (2008) African or American: Black Identity and Activism in New York City, 1784-1861. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Allen, Robert. (1992) Black Awakening in Capitalist America. Trenton, NJ: African World Press.

Lipton Eric & Lichtblau, Eric. “In Black Caucus, a Fund-Raising Powerhouse.” New York Times. Febryary 13, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/us/politics/14cbc.html

Ransby, Barbara. (2005) Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Robinson, Cedric. (1997) Black Movements in America. New York: Routledge.

Stewart, Nikita. “D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty surpasses 2006 fundraising record.” Friday March 12, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/us/politics/14cbc.html

Stuckey, Sterling. (1987) Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America. New York: Oxford University Press.

Watkins, William. (2001) The White Architects of Black Education: Ideology and Power in America, 1865-1954. New York: Teachers College Press.

3 comments:

  1. Excellent Analysis. The issue of intergenerational suppression of Black Power must become one we use to raise the next generation of Afrikan/black scholars. Baker's ideals of leadership are also a good start.

    Peace

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  2. Very thorough analysis of the ineptitude of Negro leadership over the course of time. Not until we truly learn to define ourselves apart from Europeans will we be able to create a true grassroots leadership. Excellent work sir.

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  3. What this article is missing, however, is a working definition of leadership and how to authenticate it. I highly recommend Dr. Amos Wilson's book Blueprint for Black Power. The last chapter deals with the Black Leadership Crisis. I think you will find some more indepth insight to this matter. I have a lecture this weekend in San Antonio on this subject and will examine various African cultures, in relationship to the meanings behind the Ankh symbol, to serve as a moral and ethical grounding in which to define and authenticate leadership rooted in African models of excellence. I argue there is a leadership crisis because there is no true African-American culture to give life and purpose to leaders. How can you have leaders if your community doesn't have institutions to develop/grow them since birth?

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