Ten years after W.E.B. Du Bois graduated from Fisk University, he returned to deliver the commencement address to the class of 1898. He spoke about the careers available to college-educated blacks and urged the class members to use their knowledge to enrich the black community. Du Bois' speech became the basis of the "talented tenth," his idea that a well-educated group of blacks - comprising 10 percent of the black population - could become the vehicle to pull the remaining 90 percent from the pit of racial oppression.
Du Bois did not recommend careers in law or religion. Even among whites, wealth and influence dictated which lawyers would succeed - black lawyers had trouble merely finding clients with money to pay them. As for the ministry, he said: "What we need is not more but fewer ministers, but in that lesser number we certainly need earnest, broad, and cultured men; men who do a good deal more than they say." To make progress, what the black community really needed was an intelligentsia composed of teachers, farmers, physicians, artists, merchants and "captains of industry."
"[What] schools like this must begin to supply in increasing numbers is the captain of industry," Du Bois said, "the man who can marshal and guide workers in industrial enterprises, who can foresee the demand and supply it - note the special aptitude of laborers and turn it to advantage - so guide with eye and brain the work of these black millions, that, instead of adding to the poverty of the nation and subtracting from its wealth, we may add to the wealth of the land and make Negro poverty no longer a byword."
A century has passed since Du Bois' speech, and his message is as relevant today as it was then. The black middle class has grown, and there are many more black millionaires, but the underclass remains mired in poverty, and overall blacks still trail whites by a substantial margin when it comes to personal wealth.
Du Bois had an extraordinary career as a historian, teacher, thinker, journalist and social activist. He died in 1963 - at age 93 - in Accra, Ghana, a bitter expatriate whose frustration with racism drove him to the Communist Party.
Du Bois went to his grave waiting for the talented tenth to emerge. Today, it exists on paper, but its potential leaders have not stepped forward. They lack the leadership skills, the social consciousness or the desire to bear the burden of lifting their less fortunate brethren. Some members of this group have made fortunes in occupations that Du Bois couldn't have envisioned a century ago. They are entertainers and athletes, people who reap millions of dollars acting, singing, dancing, running and jumping to meet America's insatiable appetite for amusement.
Michael Jordan made $78 million last year and has generated an estimated $10 billion for the U.S. economy since he joined the NBA. But how much wealth has he generated in the black community?
Oprah Winfrey's personal fortune is estimated at $550 million, and she ranks third on Forbes' list of the highest-paid entertainers. How much wealth has she generated for the black community?
The same question could be asked of the following - Eddie Murphy, who had a combined gross income of $49 million for 1996 and 1997; Michael Jackson, who had a combined gross income of $55 million in '96 and '97; Bill Cosby, who made $36 million in 1996 and '97; music producer, songwriter and singer Babyface, whose combined income was $44 million in '96 and '97; Grant Hill, who is paid $15.5 million a year by the Detroit Pistons and has an $80 million sneaker contract with Fila; Shaquille O'Neal, who has a seven-year, $120 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers; Tiger Woods, the professional golfer who made $25 million from endorsements last year; and Evander Holyfield, who made $11 million from his first fight with Mike Tyson in 1996 and $35 million for the 1997 rematch. (Tyson received a total of $50 million for both fights.)
While blacks account for only 13 percent of the U.S. population, more than 80 percent of the players in the NBA are black, 67 percent of the NFL is black and 17 percent of Major League Baseball players are black. The average yearly salary in the NBA is $2 million, $1.1 million in Major League Baseball and $767,000 in the NFL.
It's time to focus attention on the growing list of black entertainers and athletes who are raking in huge amounts of money and investing little time or money in the black community. Sadly, it appears that the people who are the most capable of generating capital for a black economic renaissance are the least capable of understanding how or why they should do it.
Remember when the "Live Aid" concert in 1985 raised an estimated $70 million for African famine victims? Bob Geldof, an Irish rock musician, was the chief organizer of the event, which featured 14 hours of live performances in Philadelphia, 10 hours in London, and was broadcast to 152 countries. Singing stars, mostly white, donated their time to keep black Africans from starving to death. Why haven't black singers banded together for a similar event to help the communities that produced them? Certainly the talent is there, but the sense of social consciousness is missing.
A couple of years ago, Michael Jordan drew flak because of allegations that the Nike sneakers bearing his name are made in Asian sweatshops by children earning as little as 14 cents an hour. Jordan, agitated by the criticism, tossed the ball back to Nike, saying it was the company's responsibility to answer questions about working conditions in its factories.
In essence, Jordan was saying: I don't make the sneakers, they just pay me $20 million to endorse them, and I really don't care what happens after that. Clearly, Jordan - whom I rank as one of the top athletes of the century and the best NBA player ever - lacks a sense of social consciousness. He also doesn't understand the power he possesses by just being Michael Jordan.
Suppose Michael Jordan went to Nike with a plan to make his sneakers on Chicago's South Side instead of Asia? Sure, the cost of building a plant and using U.S. labor would drive up the cost of producing the sneakers, but it would also create jobs in an area that desperately needs them. This is especially true as welfare reform knocks more women off the public dole. Aided by a public-private partnership that could include tax breaks and other publicly funded incentives, such a plan might be viable. But it can never happen as long as the Jordans and Oprahs lack the vision to explore the possibilities.
Suppose the plant is built, and the retail cost of these already-pricey sneakers rises. With clever marketing, they'd still sell. Let's face it, wearing a pair of Air Jordans doesn't improve your vertical leap. The image is what sells. Imagine a commercial showing Jordan soaring to the hoop, with his voice in the background saying: "Help me put someone to work." Then imagine these sneakers becoming chic when they show up on the feet of top black athletes and entertainers who support Jordan's effort. Instead of being a playground symbol, the Air Jordan could become the symbol of black liberation.
In fairness, I don't want to leave the impression that all black entertainers and athletes have turned their backs on the black community. In 1988, Bill Cosby and his wife Camille donated $20 million to Spelman College. Oprah wrote a personal check for $1 million to Morehouse College and created a $250,000 scholarship in her father's name at her alma mater, Tennessee State University. Earvin "Magic" Johnson helped to finance a $50 million church complex in South Central Los Angeles and has built the Magic Johnson Theaters so South Central residents need not travel 15 to 20 miles to see the latest films. Many other black entertainers and athletes have created foundations and charitable efforts to help the less fortunate.
The problem is that rich and influential blacks have failed to realize their collective power and their ability to generate capital, jobs and wealth that would enrich the entire black community. As Du Bois might see it, blacks with megabucks have failed to spawn the merchants and captains of industry necessary to create wealth and spread it around.
The importance of building wealth in the black community was the theme of the recent National Urban League conference in Philadelphia. The group's annual "State of Black America" report found that African-Americans own only about eight cents of wealth for every dollar of wealth owned by whites.
"Income is what we earn. Wealth is net worth," said Urban League president Hugh Price in a published report about the conference. "It is the nest egg that enables us to grow as a people."
Wealth is necessary "to field political power, to fuel political movements" and to support organizations that are interested in protecting the interests of blacks, Price explained.
It's interesting to note that Sears, Roebuck and Co. was the prime sponsor of the conference. So here we are, a century after Du Bois' speech at Fisk, and the Urban League had to turn to a white corporation to sponsor a conference about the plight of black America. I wonder what Du Bois would say about that.
Mike Adams is the editor of Perspective. Du Bois' speech at Fisk University came from "W.E.B. Du Bois Speaks," edited by Philip Foner, published in 1970 by Pathfinder.
Pub Date: 8/09/98