Black Rage The New Black Intellectuals

...As they are coopted into the power structure by assuming influential and well-paying roles in the plethora of community organizations funded by the Office of Economic Opportunity or on governing boards of the Model Cities program, the propensity of some paraintellectuals toward militancy and violent rhetoric seems to diminish...

...The ranks of the Negro intelligentsia have been extended, almost willy nilly, to include a new set of persons, men and women who hitherto would hardly have been called "intellectuals...

...Clair Drake and Horace Cayton, Black Metropolis (New York, 1945...

...17 Some black writers and artists also have utilitarian ends in mind when they convert to militancy: new opportunities are more readily conceded by the white power structure in artistic and literary fields, particularly among liberal whites, when confronted by Negro militancy...

...Or sinking 'neath the load we bear, Our eyes fixed forward on a star, Or gazing empty at despair...

...Hatcher in Gary, Stokes in Cleveland, Thomas Atkins in Boston, Conyers in Detroit, and Tom Bradley in Los Angeles are among the best...

...Harold W. Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (New York, 1967...

...It is this failure of the New Negro Movement to connect with the more popular and political nationalism of the Garvey movement that sharp 7 Alain Locke, The New Negro (New York, 1925), p. 15...

...Writers and artists, on the other hand, were quite independent of the establishment for their livelihood...

...Few of the established elements among the black intelligentsia have, until very recently, had such success...

...53ff...

...Only a few significant tendencies toward deviant or antiestablishment behavior could be found among the Negro intelligentsia during the years between the world wars, and these were displayed almost exclusively by writers, artists, and a few college teachers...

...But it is a feasible alliance, with political possibilities, not the least of which is lending political order to the Negro intelligentsia's endeavor to offer new leadership to the cri°is-ridden black ghetto...

...Moreover, they advance the politicalization of the black urban masses, after a fashion, by formulating descriptions of black-white relations, past and present, and policies for altering these relations that the Negro lower class finds meaningful...

...A few had independent means— often provided by fathers who were lawyers, doctors, engineers—others earned enough 2 Robert A. Bone, The Negro Novel in America (New Haven, 1958), p. 56...

...It is an alliance that will not, of course, proceed without conflict, either between the parties to it or between them and the white power structure...

...2 Persons of similar background dominated law, medicine, college teaching, and other professions...

...This militancy is displayed most often by school teachers, writers, and artists, and it results partly from the intellectual persuasion of paraintellectuals like Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver...

...Elliot Liebow, Tally's Corner (Chicago, 1967...

...Because of the racism in American life, Negro professionals practiced largely within an all-Negro context: lawyers and doctors, for example, had their own law and medical associations, which serviced their members in dealing with white society...

...Dependent upon and accepting the roles provided by the white establishment, they were less free to participate in oppositional movements...

...Today a sizable segment of the Negro intelligentsia is at the center of, or at least responding to, a popular black nationalist movement that often releases xenophobic attitudes toward white society...

...At this point enter the established Negro intelligentsia as the source of the second type of black politician able to facilitate the political institutionalization of black nationalism...

...MARTIN KILSON ly distinguishes the prewar Negro inteliectuals from their present equivalents...

...Based in West Coast cities like Oakland and San Fran 21 See Martin Kilson, "Black Power: Anatomy ofa Paradox," Harvard Journal of Negro Affairs, II, 1 (1968...

...21 And such faulty perception will in turn help perpetuate black nationalist political posturing and sporadic unrest as substitutes for serious politics...

...As a result, the paraintellectuals pose a major crisis for the established Negro intelligentsia...

...THE NEW BLACK INTELLECTUALS TENSION AND CONFLICT are unavoidable in this kind of structural change...

...18 Negro teachers, moreover, will have an increas 17 Cf...

...A new crop of professionally educated black politicians is now emerging in urban ghettos—and the growth of this group seems 22 Cf...

...But they are usually persons of high talent, and they display a high degree of motivation within the context of Negro lower-class culture...

...THE NEW BLACK INTELLECTUALS blacks who will be highly motivated to return to the urban black community to advance its fortune...

...9 Their occupational careers before their debut as "paraintellectuals" are quite varied and carry high prestige within the Negro lower class...

...This shift is not complete...

...avoid competing with the paraintellectuals in manipulating nationalist or antiwhite militancy and violent rhetoric...

...Whether this sense of security prevails depends upon the intensity and form of competition both among paraintellectuals, and between them and the established Negro intelligentsia.1 ' Most questionable here is the assumption of many black nationalist students that the validation of Negro manhood and culture through black-controlled Afro-American studies programs on white campuses is more "relevant" than the acquisition of professional skills.20 What, then, will be the longrun outcome of this development...

...These strategies, with one or another variation, have characterized the responses of the established Negro intelligentsia...

...in San Francisco there was Eldridge Cleaver, a leader of the Black Panther party...

...It was pretty much a petty-bourgeois phenomenon, and far less interested in the intellectual claims of black nationalism than in using black awareness in order to achieve concrete economic gains...

...Some paraintellectuals, the catalytic agents of black militance and violent rhetoric, have already modified their militancy in exchange for concessions from the white power structure...

...13 They share too the lower classes' brutalizing experience with the coercive arm of white-controlled cities, especially the police power...

...These men are fashioning a black militant style of their own, within the established framework of urban politics: and as they perfect the assimilation of a black ethnicity to the basic patterns of American politics, they may prove legitimate recipients of alliance with such paraintellectual elements as the Black Panther party...

...The worst, however, need not occur...

...Patterns of militancy that appear immutable might well turn out to be merely ephemeral or tactical postures...

...At best the nationalist linkage of Negro self-identification and militance on white campuses will produce a generation of college-trained 19 For insights into this issue and its dynamics, see Charles Jordan Hamilton, "Changing Patterns of Negro Leadership in Boston," Honor's Thesis, Harvard University, 1969...

...A black intelligentsia first appeared in the United States during the late 19th century...

...It can therefore be expected that the politically active segments of the established Negro intelligentsia will continue for some time to utilize a variant of antiwhite militancy as one of their political weapons...

...3) It could join forces with the paraintellectuals, more or less on the latter's terms...

...8 Cf...

...6 Garvey was fond of appearing in academic garb at public rallies...

...two plays by LeRoi Jones, Dutchman and The Slave (New York, 1964...

...at Negro colleges...

...As James Weldon Johnson put it in his poem "To America": How would you have us, as we are...

...I. Slim, Pimp: The Story of My Life (Los Angeles, 1967...

...THE NEW BLACK INTELLECTUALS from published works and artistic performances...

...The lawyers, doctors, dentists, engineers, clergymen, and other professionals remained unaffected by these trends...

...Now, intellectual activity is found more and more on the street corner, among popular groups with charismatic leaders, or in community organizations —often funded by the Office of Economic Opportunity...

...Instead, they persist in a commitment to nonracialist approaches to political and social change for Negroes.15 Yet the upper strata of the Negro intelligentsia also increasingly display interest in the nationalist militancy of the paraintellectuals, insofar as they hope such militancy will impress upon the white power structure the need to open greater opportunities to blacks.'6 Indeed, some members of the established Negro intelligentsia (notably businessmen, city civil servants, and others whose careers may be readily advanced through politics) have gone so far as to adopt or simulate a nationalist militancy of their own...

...on 40 Negro writers who were members of the Harlem Renaissance movement: 55 percent came from professional homes and 45 percent from solid middle-class, white-collar families...

...Some had lucrative patrons: wealthy whites, or white radical movements, for example, the Communist party...

...MARTIN BILSON ine than that of the paraintellectuals...

...16 Nathan Wright, Black Power and Urban Unrest (New York, 1967...

...12 The revolutionary implications of the entry into the Negro intelligentsia of men like Malcolm X., Louis X, and Eldridge Cleaver are clear enough...

...See also Thomas Kochman, "Rapping' in the Black Ghetto," Trans-action, February 1969...

...Such legitimacy is necessary in view of the paraintellectuals' new role as the natural leaders of the black city-dwellers...

...This development, however, will depend upon the emergence within the new Negro intelligentsia of political leaders skilled at redirecting into viable political channels the enormous energy now wasted by black nationalists in political posturing or role-playing...

...These two newcomers to the black intelligentsia had occupational careers like others of their group, and as a result of these careers had spent time in prison...

...the professional politicians will a':quire greater legitimacy in the eyes of the black lower class, as well as valuable political workers...

...In general, they are adept at verbal and other skills, which enables them to become what may be called "cultural celebrities" within the Negro lower class...

...2) It could compete with the paraintellectuals for leadership of the new nationalist militancy, adopting or fabricating a lowerclass oriented black militancy of its own...

...These "paraintellectuals," now a major force in the Negro intelligentsia, are largely upper-lower-class, though sometimes lowermiddleclass in background...

...There were several reasons: the Garvey movement, officially called the Universal Negro Improvement Association, depended heavily on a charismatic leadership that was not disposed to let intellectuals play an independent or critical role...

...In general, the upper strata of the black intelligentsia (e.g., lawyers, doctors, dentists, college teachers, large-scale entrepreneurs) tend to 13 Cf...

...10 The entry of these paraintellectuals into the ranks of the black intelligentsia is mainly the direct result of the urban riots of 1964 and, later, an expression of Negro outrage against racist restrictions in American society...

...10 For accounts of the occupational and cultural roles held by "paraintellectuals," see Arthur H. Fauset, Black Gods in the Metropolis (Philadelphia, 1944...

...During the past decade we have had a sizable increase of collegetrained black teachers, writers, and artists...

...But it shuns the religious forms of the Black Muslims, seeking legitimacy instead through assertive or violent political action...

...They possess at best secondary schooling, and more commonly are drop-outs from high school...

...See Larry Neal and LeRoi Jones, eds., Black Fire (New York, 1968) . ingly important role in this development: for as ghetto school districts come under Negro control through administrative decentralization, a cult of violence might well be enshrined in the curriculum of many black ghetto schools...

...22 Currently, however, the BPP is entering a second phase of political development, including organization among Negro workers, community development activity, campus organization, and some electoral activity...

...It was largely among such persons that men like Malcolm X first found their audience, for it was among them that a sense of outrage could be articulated with some freedom and coherence...

...But inasmuch as the BPP is sensitive to the need to remain legitimate in the eyes of the growing segment of lower-class blacks who are hostile to whites, it must obtain a large part of the skills required by its new political development from Negroes themselves...

...Intellectually, it owed much to Paul Lawrence Dunbar, whose novels and poetry drew heavily upon Negro folk material, in speech, lore, humor, and wit.5 Politically, the New Negro Movement was inarticulate, if not altogether indifferent, though a few writers participated in both the Communist and Socialist movements...

...Thus the rise of what I have termed black paraintellectuals represents a hitherto unknown stratum not only within the black but also within the white intelligentsia...

...They were drawn to the readiness of Malcolm X to say things that they might feel too but hesitate to express...

...3 As a result, they could experiment with new, and selfdetermined, intellectual trends...

...On the other hand, the intellectuals in the New Negro Movement, though mainly from middle-class families, were antibourgeois in outlook: some sympathized with the anticapitalist sentiments then widespread among American intellectuals, and others looked down upon economics and politics as too mundane...

...These crises have been both sociological— including a new social composition, shifting intellectual activities, a changing relationship to whites—and indirectly political, as the Negro lower classes express their violent estrangement through urban riots and demand black separatism or nationalist political leadership...

...They may be described, for want of a better term, as "paraintellectuals": self-made intellectuals, lacking for the most part formal education in literature, the expressive arts, and the liberal and technical or scientific professions...

...important cause...

...The paraintellectuals virtually control the terms according to which legitimacy in the urban black community is defined, and it is very difficult for other black leadership groups to ignore these criteria...

...They hope thereby to bring their own needs and interests more forcefully to the attention of the white power structure...

...Other groups among the established Negro intelligentsia have also assumed a militant antiwhite posture, and one more genu 15 Cf...

...but it already indicates a major change in the character of the black intelligentsia...

...Like it or not, the militants' goal of black social and economic advancement—even along black separatist lines—can be realized only through such structures as political parties, pressure groups, trade unions, professional associations, and the like...

...Though he had little formal training, Garvey wrote numerous pamphlets and articles on historical, cultural, and political issues relating to Negroes .4 To leaders of the New Negro Movement, Garvey seemed like something of an upstart, gifted but half-literate, who had chanced upon an 3 See the autobiography of Langston Hughes, The Big Sea (New York, 1940...

...for it is the addition of persons from the lower classes that has changed the social composition of the Negro intelligentsia and led to the pressure for nationalism or separatism...

...14 Cf...

...Laurent emerged as founder and leader of NEGRO (New England Grass Roots Organization...

...Because the social structure of the Negro intelligentsia conditioned its intellectual style and ideology, an establishmentarian intellectual style and political outlook prevailed...

...Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land (New York, 1965...

...When members of the New Negro Movement did occasionally assume a political posture they did so through white radical politics rather than Garveyism or its offshoots.s By the end of World War II the first two major deviant racialist movements among Negroes had no effective links...

...and in closely knit groups of middle- to upper-class literati (e.g., the Harlem Renaissance movement of the 20s and 30s...

...The new Negro intelligentsia will no doubt be militant in racial outlook and political style: but its use of militancy will probably be tempered by practical considerations...

...it is seen as serving a dual function: validating Negro manhood and forcing concessions from white institutions...

...And as urban riots became a regular feature of the political expression of the black lower classes, the teachers, writers, and artists were the first within the Negro intelligentsia to welcome this mode of attack on the white power structure...

...The latter group of black intellectuals saw it as their mission to help their fellow-blacks alter their self-image...

...At worst, this development will produce, for many college-educated blacks, a vicious psychological dependence upon antiwhite violent rhetoric...

...Only after the first flush of urban riots in 1964 did a large stratum of persons distinguishable as paraintellectuals emerge...

...14 These common experiences enabled the paraintellectuals to be spokesmen for the Negro masses as they emerged into a militant politicalization through riots...

...Conflicts in social outlook and style also kept the New Negro Movement at a distance from Garveyism...

...Lawyers currently predominate in the new group of Negro professional politicians...

...Other occupations of Negro "paraintellectuals" are rather more conven s Cf...

...12 See Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice (New York, 1968...

...Alain Locke, the finest theoretical thinker in the New Negro Movement, remarked in 1926 that "Garveyism may be a transient, if spectacular, phenomenon, but the possible role of the American Negro in the future development of Africa is one of the most constructive and universally helpful missions that any modem people can lay claim to...

...In Boston, Guido St...

...As the new militants in the Negro intelligentsia adapt their aims to institutionalized structures and processes, the therapeutic and normless features of black militancy will be filtered out or neutralized...

...5 Paul L. Dunbar, Collected Poems (New York, 1930...

...Fortunately, such politicians are already surfacing...

...In several cities, especially New York, some teachers, writers, and artists have joined forces with the paraintellectuals in disseminating a veritable cult of violence...

...From the 1920s through the 1940s the most important of such trends was the movement toward a race-conscious literature and art—the objectives of the Harlem Renaissance movement, also known as the New Negro Movement .4 Through the folkways of blacks the New Negro Movement sought to redefine the meaning of Negro life in particular and human existence in general...

...Furthermore, when the white power structure concedes new roles and benefits to the politically active segments of the established Negro intelligentsia as a result of antiwhite militancy, these segments perceive an additional use for militancy: it enables them to appear legitimate in the eyes of the urban black lower class...

...Violence, rhetorical or actual, had a special role in the early phase of the BPP because the idea of black renascence was rooted in the paraintellectuals' need to link Negro self-identification with violence...

...The basis of this tendency has been a revolutionary change, which was both sociological and ideological, in the Negro intelligentsia...

...they will, in a word, be reduced to mere trappings of the political process, though symbolically important ones...

...Every American city with a sizable Negro population (say 10 percent or more) has experienced the rise of such a stratum...

...The paraintellectuals came onto the scene as legitimate and natural leaders...

...Indeed, antiwhite violence in general is celebrated by growing numbers...

...But it is doubtful that the limited educational and technical skills possessed by the paraintellectual leaders of the BPP will allow it to evolve very far in this new direction without outside aid from more skilled groups...

...N THE PAST decade there has been a power ful thrust toward a fusion of the two currents of black racialism inherited from the pre-World War II era...

...Moreover, their perception of the black community's basic needs (which are, mainly, more skills and resources in order to participate effectively in our society) will be pathetically distorted...

...18 LeRoi Jones's Black Arts Repertory Theatre School in New York is part of this development...

...Garvey, who designated himself Provisional President of Africa, possessed a strong ego and nursed intellectual ambitions of his own...

...These occupations include "hustling" roles: pimp, numbers writer, narcotics pusher, etc...

...Hatcher's experience in Gary illustrates both forms of conflict...

...These two dimensions are intimately related...

...they belong to the Negro intelligentsia, yet their roots in the black lower-class community remain strong...

...Though a handful of paraintellectuals had surfaced before these events (e.g., Malcolm X, Louis X, and others who were transformed into paraintellectuals by way of the Black Muslim movement),11 they were exceptions...

...4 Bone, The Negro Novel in America, pp...

...R R IGHT NOW we are too close to the processes of change and crisis in the Negro intelligentsia to know precisely what future trends will be...

...Until recently, if movement of lower-class blacks into the intelligentsia occurred at all, high school education was the minimum and college education the usual requirement...

...Such an alliance could well be mutually beneficial: the paraintellectuals will derive from it the professional skills and relationships they badly need...

...Floyd McKissick, Three-Fifths of a Man (Toronto, 1969...

...Edmund Cronon, Black Moses (Madison, 1955...

...Unlike the established elements in the Negro intelligentsia, the paraintellectuals share a cultural experience similar to that of the black lower classes...

...Several resolutions of the crisis are available to the established intelligentsia: (1) It could leave the emergent militant politics in the hands of the paraintellectuals, concentrating instead on broadening and consolidating traditional roles made available through the moderate politics of the civil rights movement...

...20 See Ernest Dunbar, "The Black Studies Thing," New York Times Magazine, April 6, 1969...

...11 See Malcolm X (and Alex Haley), Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York, 1966...

...Charles Keil, Urban Blues (Chicago, 1966...

...Thus the BPP's early political acts invariably entailed confrontation with such features of the white power structure in urban ghettos as the police and the courts...

...STANLEY PACION certain as more Negroes enter and complete college...

...Rather curiously, the New Negro Movement remained independent of another racialist movement, formed by Marcus Garvey during World War I, which was political...

...cisco and rapidly spreading to Midwestern and Eastern cities, the Black Panther party (BPP) is mostly a secular variant of the Black Muslim movement...

...Bobby Seale, "Selections from the Biography of Huey Newton," Ramparts, October 26, 1968...

...The paraintellectuals, particularly those organized in the Black Panther party, represent one type of Negro leader potentially capable of facilitating the political institutionalization of black nationalism...

...From then until almost the present day, the middle and upper class of the Negro community formed the main social base of this group.' An illustration is the data we have 1 E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro in the United States (New York, 1949...

...As this composition changes, there are new claimants to Negro leadership, who transform traditional emphases within the black intellectual community...

...Like the Black Muslims, the BPP seeks the transformation or rebirth of the Negro personality...

...Formerly, activities were carried out through the NAACP, the Negro Medical Association, or other professional groups...

...As a rule, these associations were viewed as stopgap or transitory agencies, for Negro doctors and lawyers hoped ultimately to integrate, both as professionals and members of the middle class, into white institutions...

...The Garvey movement was led by small businessmen...

...This is especially true in cities where the paraintellectuals feel secure about cooptation into the power structure...

...Another important characteristic of that portion of the Negro intelligentsia inclines toward the nationalist rhetoric of the paraintellectuals and is a sociological tie with the black lower classes...

...This is already recognized by some BPP leaders who have sought the assistance of middle-class white radicals and their organizations, such as the Progressive Labor party and the Peace and Freedom party...

...tional: petty shopkeeper, poolroom operator, storefront preacher, etc...