I WAS very saddened to hear of the death in August of Elizabeth Wright, the eloquent and impassioned defender of black self-reliance who occasionally commented here and whose writings were collected at her site, Issues and Views, which now appears to be in disarray with many of her archives lost. Jared Taylor wrote a brief remembrance of Wright at that time. It can be read here.

Wright, who was black, claimed that white liberals and black intellectuals had all but decimated the dignity and work ethic of ordinary black men. One of her best writings on this theme is her two-part 1993 series, “Destroying Black Male Authority.” In , “Black Men: They Could Be Heroes,” she wrote:

How did the men who are today’s vagabonds become so bereft of a sense of mission, if only for themselves? How is it that most of them have no knowledge of the black men who, long before America’s official slavery ended, long before anything called an Emancipation Proclamation, had the confidence to make the most of their free status and sustained their families in dignity? What force of circumstance so totally cut off today’s derelicts from that tradition of blacks who would have preferred to die rather than be viewed as anything except a “credit to the race?”

The very real restrictions on black economic mobility in the past have been recounted in many sources. Historian John Sibley Butler describes the mass of legislation, especially in the South, that was designed to limit the black man’s ability to effectively compete in the marketplace with whites. Such laws forced blacks into what Butler calls an “economic detour,” as they attempted, like members of all other groups, to create economic foundations through business enterprise. Biased laws denied them the ability to expand their enterprises beyond the borders of black communities.

Yet, in spite of these legal maneuvers, over the generations, tens of thousands of black men mastered the economic principles that drove American society. Under the guidance and encouragement of leaders like Booker T. Washington, a great many managed to prosper even within a limited economic niche. Butler reports that between 1867 and 1917, the number of black-owned businesses increased from 4,000 to 50,000.

All of this business activity is evidence of the family bonds that were strongly in place as brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, and offspring worked together to maintain the family businesses. In economist Thomas Sowell’s studies, he describes the critical importance of trust among members of various immigrant groups, as they re-establish their lives in new countries, pooling resources and putting off immediate pleasures. Sowell claims that a sense of trust among members is the key to any group’s future progress. Among blacks, in this early period, the examples of familial cooperation are legion.

The Pretentious Intellectuals

Yet, all the while that blacks were experiencing varying degrees of success as craftsmen, farmers, business proprietors, and even as founders of towns in the South and Southwest, a growing number of “intellectuals” in the North were shaping agendas that eventually would re-direct the attention of the masses. More formally educated than most blacks and eager to enjoy life’s comforts, their driving ambitions centered primarily around the trappings of success.

In the 1850s, abolitionist Martin Delany described freed blacks who yearned for prestigious occupations. He exhorted them first to emulate others who understood the necessity of educating their children “to do every-day practical business.” Such people were wise, said Delany, because they were willing to take one step at a time. Living in a period prior to the imposition of severe legal restrictions on black enterprise, Delany intoned, “This has been one of our great mistakes—we have gone in advance of ourselves. We have commenced at the superstructure of the building, instead of the foundation—at the top instead of the bottom. We should first be mechanics and common tradesmen, and professions as a matter of course would grow out of the wealth made thereby.”

This was the course that would be followed in the early part of this century by the Tuskegee-inspired southern blacks. Delany warned that those who would have blacks “leap too far” encouraged the young to possess either “no qualification at all, or a collegiate education,” leaping from the deepest abyss to the highest summit, “without medium or intermission.”

But the black elites were to take their lead from a band of white liberals and other black scholars and pedants, led principally by W.E.B. Du Bois, a man who by 1890 had achieved a doctorate from Harvard University. He was to play a major role in attempts to undermine Tuskegee’s outstanding success with the poorest blacks. A highbrow snob, Du Bois dismissed as unworthy the labor of craftsmen, farmers and business owners. In his zeal to drag all blacks through his beloved halls of ivy, he talked of “turning carpenters into men.” For, in that peculiar world into which he had assimilated, one who labored or was bereft of a college degree could hardly be considered a man. It is this pretentious spirit that was to become the hallmark of the black elite, whose overriding influence would shape the thinking and behavior of future generations of blacks.

Snobbery alone was not why people like Du Bois set out to convince the masses that they shared the same interests as the elite. It became clear to this cynical crew, who were already actively soliciting whites for greater political and social interaction, that success would be more likely if such demands were made in the name of the entire race, not just an affluent, educated gentry.

                                            — Comments —

Hannon writes:

Just want to say many thanks for posting the 1993 essay by Elizabeth Wright. I read both parts and it is one of the best social commentaries I have ever come across.

Jesse Powell writes:

In terms of black wealth, things are worse today than when Wright wrote her essay. In 1983, in constant 2009 dollars, black median wealth (among households) was $6,300 while for whites it was $94,100. By 2009, black median wealth dropped to a mere $2,200 while for whites median wealth was about the same at $97,900.

Reading Wright’s essay one gets the idea that there is something seriously wrong with black America; that a kind of sickness has settled into the black culture that wasn’t there before the Civil Rights Movement but is most definitely there today. Family breakdown has affected all of America but has affected blacks particularly severely and I believe that is the source of the problem Looking at the social indicators it really is amazing how fast the black family has declined since 1960; it has declined far faster than the white family. It is understandable to me that the black family would be worse off than the white family. There was slavery after all followed by Jim Crow segregation that could explain an impaired ability among black men to form and maintain their families as compared to white men. The serious and very rapid decline in black family life however happened after racial discrimination was ended. I think it may be that the end of Jim Crow segregation and the large black migration out of the South accelerated family breakdown. No longer having the externally imposed rules of segregation and having a large portion of the population move to strange new lands where one seeks to integrate with a foreign white culture may have represented a major cultural shock that was in addition to the cultural shock of economic development and the move to the cities that the nation overall faced. 

The white population faced the shock of the rapid increase in wealth and the move to the cities but the black population faced a double upheaval; not only the changes the society overall was going through but in addition the changes associated with mass migration and the end of the external racial order that previously was imposed upon them. It needs to be remembered that even a positive change is a change that can disrupt and disorient. Increased wealth and improved technologies is a good thing but it was the initiating force behind family breakdown. Likewise the end of racial discrimination against blacks and blacks’ new freedom to move to and live wherever they want is a good thing for blacks but at the same time it may have accelerated family breakdown among the black population and made the social situation among blacks worse. 

It is of interest to note that according to the 2010 Census the black Married Parents Ratio (the proportion of black own children who live with married parents) was 38.8% for the nation overall. However, if one divides the nation into two parts and looks at the “Old South” (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida) and the Rest of the Nation separately one finds that the black Married Parents Ratio in the Old South is 40.2% while it is 37.9% for the Rest of the Nation (37% of black children live in the Old South states). The black Married Parents Ratio in 1990, close to when Wright’s essay was written, was 45.4%. 

Elizabeth Wright’s insightful commentary on the black condition will be missed. May she rest in peace.

 Laura writes:

Wright would disagree with you. Her point was that the ideology of the civil rights movement destroyed self-reliance and male authority, not that the end of segregation was so disorienting that blacks had no choice but to establish matriarchal homes supported by the government.

If disorientation led to family breakdown, why has it continued to get worse?

Please follow and like us: