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In 1930 Howard University asked W. E. B. Du Bois, perhaps the most prominent black intellectual in the United States, to deliver its commencement address. Decades earlier, Du Bois had argued that the bulk of the black community's resources should be directed toward the maintenance and cultivation of its brightest and most creative individuals — a "talented tenth" of the African American population that would lead other black people out of racial oppression. Colleges such as Howard University were important parts of this process. Yet by 1930 Du Bois had become profoundly disappointed in the talented tenth. To him, black college students simply imitated their white counterparts, becoming more concerned with the collegiate fads of the Roaring Twenties than with their obligations to the community. His commencement address castigated Howard students for their lack of social consciousness:
Our college man today is, on the average...
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This section contains 242 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page) |
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