Talented Tenth———1295

T-Schaefer-45503.qxd 2/18/2008 10:42 AM Page 1295 Talented Tenth———1295 will want to settle permanently in Taiwan. For this Further Readings reason, workers receive restricted visas limiting their Copper, John F. 1990. Taiwan, Nation-State or Province? stay to only 3 years at a time. Workers are also required Boulder, CO: Westview Press. to provide a background check or “certificate of good Davidson, James W. [1903] 1988. The Island of Formosa, Past conduct” from their homeland and to submit to a med- and Present. Taipei: Southern Materials Center. Reprint of ical exam including tests for HIV and other sexually 1903 edition published by Macmillan, New York. transmitted diseases (STDs), parasites, tuberculosis, Directorate General of Budget. 2006. Accounting and pneumonia, and other communicable diseases. Statistics. Retrieved November 24, 2006, from According to Taiwan’s Overseas Chinese Affairs http://eng.dgbas.gov.tw Commission (OCAC), emigration from Taiwan about Government Information Office Republic of China (Taiwan). equals immigration to the island with about 1.265 mil- 2005. Taiwan Yearbook 2005. Available from lion emigrants and 1.262 million immigrants. http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/yearbook Manthorpe, Jonathan. 2005. Forbidden Nation, A History of Taiwan. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Economic Development Ministry of Education, Republic of China (Taiwan). 2006. and Imported Labor 2006 Educational Statistical Indicators. Available from http://english.moe.gov.tw Rapid industrialization and development of a robust National Statistics, Republic of China. 2006. Available from export market have been encouraged by the govern- http://eng.stat.gov.tw ment. This has placed Taiwan among Southeast Asia’s Teng, Jinhua H. 2004. Taiwan’s Imagined Geography, “Tiger” economies, along with Hong Kong, Singapore, Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures. and South Korea. The diminishing importance of agri- Cambridge, MA: Harvard University East Asia Center. culture in the 1960s and the resulting growth in labor- intensive industry and the service sectors led to a greater demand for labor. According to the National Statistics Office, Taiwan has a workforce of more than 10 million ALENTED ENTH people and an unemployment rate of less than 4%. T T By the 1980s, there was a shortage of workers as the birthrate had declined markedly and labor demand The Talented Tenth is a term used to describe the had risen. In addition, the increasing number of years vanguard—that is, the best and brightest—of the African spent in education delayed entry into the labor market American community. An admittedly elitist concept, the for younger generations. As workers became better Talented Tenth was originally conceived as a class of educated and in shorter supply, labor costs began to educated and principled Black men who would emerge rise. Workers involved in the “3D” occupations (dirty, as leaders of the disadvantaged “Negro” community. difficult, and dangerous) had begun to unionize argu- Although the term was coined in 1896 by the White lib- ing for better working conditions and more pay. This eral Rev. Henry Lyman Morehouse (1834–1917, after conflict between labor rights organizations and indus- whom Morehouse College was named), W. E. B. try has been seen by some as the true cause for impor- Du Bois (1868–1963) first gave this idea prominence. tation of foreign labor. By the mid-1980s, as many as Though Du Bois was its primary architect in theory, 100,000 foreign workers were employed illegally in Alain Locke (1886–1954) was arguably its most suc- Taiwan. At this point, the government decided, under cessful promoter in practice. The Harlem Renaissance pressure from industry and growing public concern, to (1919–1934)—with Locke as the real genius behind legalize and regulate the importation of foreign work- it—was a cultural movement made of the literary and ers in designated projects and certain labor-intensive artistic vanguard of the Talented Tenth. Related to industries such as electronics and textiles. Du Bois’s concept of the Talented Tenth (“the Best”) is its polar opposite, the “submerged tenth” (“the Stephen J. Sills Worst”), and, at the other end of the spectrum, Du Bois’s See Appendix A later concept of the “Guiding Hundredth” (what one See also Asian Americans; Asian American Studies; China; might characterize as the Talented Tenth among the Chinese Americans; Foreign Students; Globalization; Talented Tenth). This entry compares Du Bois’s and Japan; Pacific Islanders Locke’s conceptions of the Talented Tenth. T-Schaefer-45503.qxd 2/18/2008 10:42 AM Page 1296 1296———Talented Tenth W. E. B. Du Bois’s Vision all of its ideals. Another advocate and exemplar of the of the Talented Tenth Talented Tenth was Alain Locke, a figure who, in his heyday, commanded an influence nearly equal to that In his 1903 manifesto, “The Talented Tenth,” Du Bois of Du Bois. In their contribution to the United States propounded a theory that was simple yet profound: as a whole, Locke saw this vanguard of talent within Raise up the most gifted African Americans, and they the Negro community serving as literally an invest- will advance the interests of all Black Americans. ment for all in democracy. Du Bois wrote that African Americans had to be saved Famed as the first African American Rhodes scholar by the “exceptional men” among them. Du Bois (1907), as editor of The New Negro (1925)—acclaimed viewed “the Talented Tenth” as the missionaries of as the first national book of African Americans and, he culture among Black people, a role reserved for them, himself, as the father of multiculturalism (in his role as not for Whites or others. one of the first philosophers of cultural pluralism), Forty-five years later, when he felt that the race had Locke began editing the Bronze Booklets on the not been saved as he had hoped it would, Du Bois History, Problems, and Cultural Contributions of the refined his theory. In August 1948, Du Bois delivered Negro in 1936 under the auspices of the Associates in his famous Wilberforce University speech, “The Negro Folk Education. These eight booklets became Talented Tenth Memorial Address,” to an audience of standard references for teaching African American eminent African Americans—themselves the epitome history. In 1945, Locke was chosen as the first African of the Talented Tenth. Du Bois proclaimed, true to his American president of the American Association for Marxist vision at the time, that these leaders must not Adult Education. Like Du Bois, Locke supported the work as individuals but be willing to make sacrifices idea of the Talented Tenth, championing college edu- and actually plan for an economic revolution in indus- cation to advance the vanguard and adult education to try that would lead to a redistribution of wealth. advance the masses. Because racial justice and ideal Elaborating his notion of the Talented Tenth, Du Bois race relations were essentially interracial endeavors, then spoke of the “Guiding Hundredth” Locke recognized the role of talented and outstanding The “Guiding Hundredth,” as Du Bois envisioned it, Whites in advancing racial democracy as well. would function as a leadership group of inspired indi- As in Du Bois’s vision of the “Guiding Hundredth,” viduals. Its members would form alliances (Whites the idea of the Talented Tenth took on increasingly included) on all continents to bring about “a New World international dimensions. More than Du Bois, in fact, culture.” Du Bois’s new doctrine effectively democra- Locke is generally credited with having most effec- tizes and internationalizes his original strategy for racial tively internationalized the U.S. race dilemma. In advancement by giving it global horizons beyond Black his unpublished Hampton commencement address, Nationalism. As the maturation of his original theory “Stretching Our Social Mind” (August 18, 1944), Locke of the “Talented Tenth,” the “Guiding Hundredth” is states that the time had come for an organization numerically narrower, yet strategically broader. like the National Association for the Advancement of Du Bois’s original vision was born of his own Colored People (NAACP) to shift its emphasis and experience. After meditating profoundly on the plight change its name to the “National Association for the of his people—lynching, disenfranchisement, and Advancement of American Democracy.” segregation—Du Bois saw salvation through intelli- The concept of the Talented Tenth was not static. It gent leadership through a Talented Tenth. At the other evolved into something much broader than originally end of the social spectrum, however, he saw “the sub- conceived, progressing from a Black Nationalist vision merged tenth”—a term Du Bois defines in The to a world vision. Even in their own lifetimes, Du Bois Philadelphia Negro as an underclass of the criminals, (who embraced Marxist ideology) and Locke (who prostitutes, and the lazy. embraced Baha’i ideology) relativized their vanguard elitisms within the wider strategy of common cause. Alain Locke’s Vision Christopher George Buck of the Talented Tenth See also African Americans; Black Intellectuals; As part of this process of social “salvation,” Du Bois Discrimination; Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt; was the Talented Tenth’s living exemplar, embodying Harlem Renaissance; Lynching; Minority Rights; Model T-Schaefer-45503.qxd 2/18/2008 10:42 AM Page 1297 Terrorism———1297 Minority; Multicultural Social Movements; People of world politics. This entry examines definitions of ter- Color; Pluralism; Prejudice; Racism; Segregation rorism, its recent impact, and responses to the threats to Western nations. Further Readings What Is Terrorism? Battle, Juan and Earl Wright II. 2002. “W. E. B. Du Bois’ Talented Tenth: A Quantitative Assessment.” Journal of Defining terrorism is a difficult task, with more than a Black Studies 32(6, July):654–672. hundred definitions proposed by various governments Du Bois, W. E.

Load more