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Black Ink March 25,1991 Political, Economic and Educational Equality A Return To Segregation and Second-Class Citizenship Which Way To Progress? In the 90s, the age-old dehate of methods of advancement continues against a backdrop of numerous challenges By James Benton Assistant Editor African-Americans have al ways seemed to be at odds over the methods they should use to make progress. In the last decade of the 19th Century, a racial debate emerged between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois over the course of black empower ment in the face of political and economic gains that were slowly being taken away as the post- Reconstruction Redemption movement gained ground in the South. The battle lines of this ideo- k)gical classic are familiar to many. Washington was a former slave, Du Bois was a free black. Wash ington was a product of the voca tional training program of Hamp ton Institute. Firmly ensconsced at Alabama’s Tuskeegee Institute, Washington strove to educatc blacks on the importance of voca tional education and economic empowerment Du Bois was edu cated at Harvard and the Univer sity of Berlin, and was developing at Atlanta University a new, fledg ling science—sociology. Du Bois advocated political and social equality instead of adopting Washington’s economic strategy as the way for the advancement of America’s darker brethren. And soon. The pattern of two so-called “spokesmen” of black Americans repeated itself in the late 1950s and early to mid-1960s with the rise of leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, more commonly known as Malcolm X. King, a college-educated minister, became a powerful leader of the Civil Rights Movement through his use of direct non violentconfirontation, tempered with Gandhi’s philoso phy of satyagraha (soul force), Thoreau’s ideas of civil disobedi ence and other tactics to expose the moral and ethical wrongs of segregation and discrimination. Meanwhile, Malcolm X, who received his education in the streets of Boston and New York, was a former street hustler and convicted felon. He reformed himself and became an outspoken disciple of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, stressing self-segre gation from whites. He also advo cated self-determination in those segregated communities to build economic power and develop lead ership. Instead of challenging the morals of the oppressor, as King did, Malcolm chose instead to take his case before First World coun tries, including the newly inde pendent African states, to gain support from them in the United Nations, where he sought to have resoluuons passed condemning the United States for its hypocritical practice of legalized segregation and discrimination despite profess ing equality for all her people. An important factor that must be considered in the examples above is the inability of each leader to capture the attention and moti vation of the entire population of African-Americans. For many years, African-Americans have always used “unity” as abuzzword, a mantra of sorts; We have had a common heritage, they say; there fore, we should have a common destiny. Anything less than a common destiny translated into a pernicious situation of “divide and conquCT” that kept African-Ameri cans down. However, all African- Americans have not been exposed to the same set of circumstances; consequently, they will share dif ferent experiences. In the above cases, no one ideology was seen as “the way” for African-Americans. Washington’s principles applied directly to rural and lower-class black Americans, while Du Bois’ aspirations appealed to urban blacks or those of the middle and upper classes. In this case, those who found favor with Du Bois’ goals were most likely to have economic stability, therefore, they soughtpolitical gains because they already had the money. And those who found Washington’s goals more suitable most likely needed money in order to survive more than they needed the right to vote. The approaches of King and Malcolm X transcended class, but each encountered regional diffCT- ences: King’s greatest success came in the South, aregion steeped in tradition and moralistic culture that took a great influence from religion. As a result. King did not have great success in protesting in the North. Malcolm X, meanwhile, avoided the South until weeks before his death, when he visited Selma, Alabama to set forth an alternative perspective that he believed would make whites more likely to accept King’s perspec tive. Makolm limited his efforts to the urban North and the interna-
Black Ink (Black Student Movement, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
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March 25, 1991, edition 1
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