Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century

Critical Reflection

“ Uplifting the Race”

Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century

Uplifting the Race is a rather confusing yet stimulating study that goes over the rising idea and interests in the evolution of "racial uplift" ideology from the turn and through the twentieth century. In the first part of the book, Gaines analyzes the black elite obsession with racial uplift ideology and the tensions it produced among black intellectuals. Gaines argues for the most part that during the nineteenth-century racial uplift ideology was part of a "liberation theology" as stated by Gaines, which stressed a group struggle for freedom and social advancement.

In this particular piece by Gaines, offers a close analysis of the racial, class, color, and gender dimensions of a very complex subject, yet it is also a provoking study. As stated in many of our classroom discussion that, it is a difficult read that employs complicated language and a fragmented organizational structure. For me as well as many others in the class, this piece required a dictionary on hand for a translation of the word choice used by Gaines. At times Gaines' analysis lacks any clear sense of flow and seems to be wandering from one unrelated point to another. In nine fully documented chapters with an excellent bibliography and index, Kevin K. Gaines develops his ideas with regard to an "uplift ideology." He begins at the turn of the century by examining violent racism as Reconstruction was dying and the civil-rights movement was born. From this historical mix emerges a new concept, "uplift," whereby the upper class, or elite blacks, believed that they could earn the rights and respect of whites by assuming bourgeois mores of self-help and service to the black masses. The underlying assumption of the "uplift" concept was that blacks' material and moral progress would lessen the racism of whites.

For Example, the first three chapters describe some of the more pertinent concerns and problems inherent in the uplift ideology. In an fascinating and absorbing manner, yet one that is somewhat perplexing, as is most of this book, in my opinion, the author encounters difficulties in three particular areas, the first being the somewhat clear uplift of decline of the notions of black politics, and how issues surrounding the political arena was somewhat adversely against black and also it show how the during the turn of the century, many black use politics as a mean a gaining some “place” in society. Second address the lower socioeconomic classes and how some doctrines such as “separate but equal“ was in place not only to hinder the black race but to advance the majority in the United States as well as Jim Crow Laws.

These were a series of laws enacted mostly in the Southern United States in the later half of the 19th century that restricted most of the new privileges granted to African American after the Civil War. The discriminatory Jim Crow laws were enacted to support the notion of racial segregation. They required black and white people to use separate water fountains, public schools, public bathhouses, restaurants, public libraries, and rail cars in public transit. Originally called the Black Codes they later became known as Jim Crow laws, after a familiar minstrel character of the day. The laws became the legal justification for segregating black and white citizens for much of the latter part of the nineteenth century and for more than half of the twentieth century. The term "Jim Crow" does not apply to all racist laws, but only to those passed after Reconstruction.

Lastly, address the Negro Problem, which I see as being the fact that, blacks have a

tendency of only stating what the problem is and see that as making a change in society, but really the change does happen or does not even exist until someone poses a solution and acts upon that. The concept or just the very of idea racial uplift ideology made it impossible for black elites to develop compassion for the masses or recognize and act upon systemic barriers to racial advancement. Through an emphasis on the patriarchal family, elite blacks attempted to affirm their respectability and contradict the notion that minstrel stereotypes applied to the "better class" of African-Americans. Jim Crow segregation, Plans of a New South economic development, and social changes brought