Influence of Powerful Leaders
Unit III had primary focus on the political standpoint of African Americans in the United States. The Reconstruction of America concerned three main groups: Politicians, Southern Whites, and Newly Emancipated African Americans. After the assassination of President Lincoln, Andrew Johnson succeeded the office in 1865 along with his plan for Reunification. As a White Supremacist, a term we should be familiar with, Johnson strove to restore and ensure power in Southern America to white political parties. During this, African Americans struggled in this Reconstruction with powerful leaders such as Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, who really stood out to me in this Unit, all began to come into play and make an impact for the African American Community.
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1903 W.E.B. Du Bois "Talented Tenth" Response
Du Bois published an essay describing what he labeled as the "Talented Tenth." The Talented Tenth represents ten percent of the African American community as leaders in a Democratic Society. Du Bois struggled ensuring that just because there was a talented tenth didn't mean that there was necessarily an untalented 90th, but that there every type of person had an important play in their own roles. His main thesis exposes the idea of an intellectual infrastructure, and the idea of influencing people of a certain society to want to be a part of the best, and to be included in the big picture. This pressure, I believe, has led to a decimation of white supremacy by closing the gap between the hierarchy of the black and white. In today's society, the most noticeable instance is recognizable with Trump now in office, along with the differences and similarities compared to President Barack Obama.
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Many things have allowed me to see things in a different perspective. As an individual of mixed races, black and white, it has been enlightening to learn different things. I now fully understand all general knowledge of Jim Crow, I have read inserts from people who have been captured as slaves and sent to America, and I have seen what it takes for a society to be reconstructed. I have already began to use this information in conversations I have come across, and feel more knowledgeable about my own demographics and more knowledgeable as a person of this working society.
