[newzjunkey]

Here you go: Talented Tenth (1903), concept espoused by black educator and author W.E.B. Du Bois, emphasizing the necessity for higher education to develop the leadership capacity among the most able 10 percent of American Negroes. Du Bois was one of a number of black intellectuals who feared that what they saw as the overemphasis on industrial training (as evidenced, for example, by the plan proposed by Booker T. Washington in the 1895 Atlanta Compromise, q.v.) would confine blacks permanently to the ranks of second-class citizenship. In order to achieve political and civil equality, Du Bois stressed the importance of educating Negro teachers, professional men, ministers, and spokesmen, who would earn their special privileges by dedicating themselves to "leavening the lump" and "inspiring the masses." The phrase Talented Tenth first appeared in Du Bois' The Negro Problem (New York, 1903).

Source

[hellinahandcart]

Got it. But is anyone else seeing what I'm seeing in Cynthis Tucker's last paragraph?:

But no support group or safe-sex counseling would do those young men as much good as broad acceptance of homosexuality. If black America doesn't let go its bigotry, it may end up sacrificing what W.E.B. DuBois called its talented tenth.

Does she think the "Talented Tenth" are all closet homos or something? I can't figure this woman out.

(I have the same trouble with a lot of her articles, but especially this one. What do you MEAN here, Cynthia?)