What do you think?
Rate this book
Transcending the Talented Tenth
In Transcending the Talented Tenth, Joy James provocatively examines African American intellectual responses to racism and the role of elitism, sexism and anti-radicalism in black leadership politics throughout history. She begins with Du Bois' construction of "the Talented Tenth" as an elite leadership of race managers and takes us through the lives and work of radical women in the anti-lynching crusades, the civil rights and black liberation movements, as well as explores the contemporary struggles among black elites in academe.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionRace
248 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
About the author
Joy James
40 books118 followersJoy James is the John B. and John T. McCoy Presidential Professor of Humanities and College Professor in Political Science at Williams College. She is the author of Resisting State Violence: Radicalism, Gender, and Race in U.S. Culture, and her edited works on incarceration and human rights include States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons and Imprisoned Intellectuals: America's Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 1, 2021
Another phenomenal collection here from Dr. Joy James. I learned a lot about Du Bois, his evolution from his construction of the Talented Tenth to his class-based refutation of it years later, but also about the current state of Black leadership and the revival of the Tenth in modern American politics. It's unsparing, well-researched, and urgent in its critique of elitism and intellectualism as they relate to the academy and social movements.
April 21, 2026
AN EXAMINATION AND ASSESSMENT OF BLACK INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES
Joy James (b. 1958) teaches African-American Studies and Humanities at Williams College; she previously taught at Brown University, Columbia University, the University of Colorado Boulder, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Lewis Gordon wrote in his Foreword to this 1997 book, “The current, popular intellectual environment for Africana intellectuals is one of demonstrated hostility to models of earned membership. The divide is striking in [this book], where James takes on the overdue and ironic task of undoing the erasure of praxis intellectuals in contemporary African-American political thought. The collapse of theorizing practice into ‘theory as practice’ has provided some contemporary intellectuals with an imaginary access to political achievement. What more can be done beyond what they have said, when the world has become the transcendental reality of the written word?… We need the decoding voices of integrity made manifest in testaments like James’s now, proverbially, more than ever.”
James wrote in the Preface, “In the past decade, the crossing over of [James] Baldwin and so many other progressive and gifted intellectuals---including Audre Lorde, Marlon Riggs, Toni Cade Bambara. Essex Hemphill, Haywood Burns---has had a sobering effect on those who remain on this side, facing the dehumanizing realities of a society undermined by racial-sexual violence and economic exploitation, as well as the disappointing performances of celebrated leaders who often seem to lack the necessary skills or commitments for transforming society.
“What constitutes a black leadership capable of building on the legacy of historical radical intellectuals in order to promote a future free of economic and racial misery as well as sexual bigotry and violence is highly debated. [This book] examines the political thought of historical and contemporary black elites advocating social justice. It furthers contemporary debates by black intellectuals to argue that the erasure of black radical praxis from the continuum of American intellectualism allows contemporary elites and rhetoricians the APPEARANCE of radical progressivism. This appearance masks the elite acceptance of conventional theories of political leadership and activism that acquiesce to rather than challenge structural oppression.” (Pg. ixx-xx)
She continues, “Regarding this work, some may consider its critical assessments regarding the liberalism or antiradicalism of black elites too harsh. Echoing throughout this critique of black elites and American intellectuals, however, is recognition of their contributions. Acknowledging the limitations of progressive black intellectualism (limitations that are often obscured by radical rhetoric) seems a necessary skill to develop given the apparent clumsiness of our political and intellectual midwifery; the acquisition of such skill though it is a Pyrrhic victory if it is unaccompanied by the desire to shoulder and share responsibility for democratic praxis with nonelites and black radicals.” (Pg. xxi)
She states in the Introduction, “Our intellectualism, like our persistent critiques of American democracy, raises questions about the possibilities of an expansive and expanding community in a racially and economically polarized United States. These questions about the struggles of black Americans pertain to the entire racialized nation… Often black intellectuals’ queries call out injustices while sustaining the vision of intergenerational community and responsibilities. For instance, during a February 1990 Black History Month performance, Maya Angelou asked the audience … ‘If your ancestors were to appear today would they say, in looking at you, ‘So this is what I struggled and died for?’” (Pg. 3-4)
She notes, “Contemporary understandings of black intellectualism are traceable to late 19th century liberalism and its conventional antiracism. The phrase ‘Talented Tenth’, generally associated with Du Bois’s 1903 essay of the same title, originated in 1896 among Northern white liberals of the American Baptist Home Missionary Society, which established black colleges to train Negro elites… Henry Morehouse … developed the phrase ‘the Talented Tenth’ to distinguish his liberal arts education programs and their students from the ‘average or mediocre’ black intellect that aligned itself with Washington’s ideology of vocational education for race advancement.” (Pg. 16-17)
She says of Du Bois, “This internationalist anticapitalist retained a refined elitism, though: Mass and class are to unite, but caste remains. Now only the materially privileged who also possess ‘noblesse oblige’ qualified as ‘leadership and authority within the group.’ At this stage, Du Bois was not willing to demobilize the elite vanguard… Nevertheless, Du Bois would continue to whittle away at elitism in black leadership.” (Pg. 23)
Later, she observes, “Black reflections on the [Million Man March] (and the O.J. Simpson verdict that also occurred in October) were not uniformly progressive. When the New York Times magazine published Kristal Brent Zook’s 1995 ‘A Manifesto of Sorts for a Black Feminist Movement’ as its black feminist response to black unity or nationalist discourse, it replaced what some considered to be an essentialist, antiwhite and antifeminist black narrative with an amblyopic, antiblack female diatribe. The Times gave considerable exposure to a writer unknown to feminist or black organizations as a representative of the next wave of black feminism; predictably this manifesto garnered legitimacy via the Times and was subsequently used in university classes as a representative text on black feminism.
“What may not have been discussed in those classrooms was its problematic content. Zook’s claims about nonelite black women recycled antiblack caricatures to promote a black, post-modern feminist elite represented by Zook… This ‘new feminism’ is most problematic because its primary spokespersons are largely young elites with tenuous ties to nonelite black communities and black organizations and reflects an inexperienced leadership alienated from black workers and neighborhoods… The limitations of the essay and its flawed scholarship… reminded some black intellectuals of an alleged penchant of the New York Times to publish contentious articles about blacks (authored by blacks) that disparage African-American intellectual ability while simultaneously providing blacks as spectacles for the paper’s largely white elite readership.” (Pg. 126-127)
She continues, “A double standard for nonelite black women and elite black men measures the former group by a stricter code of conduct. For example, the manifesto criticizes black women as ‘supporters of Farrakhan’ without noting that some black women who sent their sons to the Million Man March distinguished between ‘the message and the messenger’ and welcomed any opportunity to diminish the high mortality rates in black neighborhoods… The new manifesto of sorts … repeatedly cites Cornel West as a model for progressive black intellectualism. Zook fails to mention that West supported, attended and defended the March… Henry Louis Gates Jr. cites West … as affirming the verdict (and Simpson’s possible innocence). West, like everyone else, has that right. It is hypocritical, though, to allow a Harvard University professor to take unpopular positions without being dismissed as intellectually or morally deficient… while simultaneously stigmatizing nonelite black females for similar stances.” (Pg. 128-129)
She reports, “West emphasizes the importance of participating in political activist struggles as well as criticizing elites… Yet West’s own literary work, which critiques the black intellectual as inherently progressive, reveals contradictory and ambivalent stances toward the activists he promotes as models… He writes that the declining quality of black intellectualism stems from both the African-American community’s lack of institutional support for intellectuals as well as (elite) black intellectuals’ failures to remain organically linked to the community… West argues against the antipathy of the African-American community for ‘the life of the mind’… West’s analysis makes important contributions toward understanding a form of American intellectualism. However, a number of points should be kept in mind. First… most elite intellectuals may have a limited impact on transforming oppressive conditions that nonelites endure not because they are intellectuals, but because they are elites, and, as elites, they shy away from radical confrontations for substantive political change.” (Pg. 157-159)
She goes on, “[West’s] ‘The Dilemma of the Black Intellectual’ contradictorily recommends Marxian philosophy as a temporary but necessary learning phase, and pronounces Marxism a ‘debilitating’ model that caters to the ‘cathartic needs’ of blacks while working to ‘stifle the further development of black critical consciousness.’... However… he generalizes to all black intellectual engagement with Marxism. His only evidence is the paltry ‘great literature’ among black Marxists. Yet there is also a paltry amount of ‘great’ or even good literature by those who identify as black postmodernists, which is presumably West’s own cadre of intellectuals that supplants the Marxists.” (Pg. 163)
This book will be of keen interest to those studying African-American issues, activism, intellectuals, and more.
Joy James (b. 1958) teaches African-American Studies and Humanities at Williams College; she previously taught at Brown University, Columbia University, the University of Colorado Boulder, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Lewis Gordon wrote in his Foreword to this 1997 book, “The current, popular intellectual environment for Africana intellectuals is one of demonstrated hostility to models of earned membership. The divide is striking in [this book], where James takes on the overdue and ironic task of undoing the erasure of praxis intellectuals in contemporary African-American political thought. The collapse of theorizing practice into ‘theory as practice’ has provided some contemporary intellectuals with an imaginary access to political achievement. What more can be done beyond what they have said, when the world has become the transcendental reality of the written word?… We need the decoding voices of integrity made manifest in testaments like James’s now, proverbially, more than ever.”
James wrote in the Preface, “In the past decade, the crossing over of [James] Baldwin and so many other progressive and gifted intellectuals---including Audre Lorde, Marlon Riggs, Toni Cade Bambara. Essex Hemphill, Haywood Burns---has had a sobering effect on those who remain on this side, facing the dehumanizing realities of a society undermined by racial-sexual violence and economic exploitation, as well as the disappointing performances of celebrated leaders who often seem to lack the necessary skills or commitments for transforming society.
“What constitutes a black leadership capable of building on the legacy of historical radical intellectuals in order to promote a future free of economic and racial misery as well as sexual bigotry and violence is highly debated. [This book] examines the political thought of historical and contemporary black elites advocating social justice. It furthers contemporary debates by black intellectuals to argue that the erasure of black radical praxis from the continuum of American intellectualism allows contemporary elites and rhetoricians the APPEARANCE of radical progressivism. This appearance masks the elite acceptance of conventional theories of political leadership and activism that acquiesce to rather than challenge structural oppression.” (Pg. ixx-xx)
She continues, “Regarding this work, some may consider its critical assessments regarding the liberalism or antiradicalism of black elites too harsh. Echoing throughout this critique of black elites and American intellectuals, however, is recognition of their contributions. Acknowledging the limitations of progressive black intellectualism (limitations that are often obscured by radical rhetoric) seems a necessary skill to develop given the apparent clumsiness of our political and intellectual midwifery; the acquisition of such skill though it is a Pyrrhic victory if it is unaccompanied by the desire to shoulder and share responsibility for democratic praxis with nonelites and black radicals.” (Pg. xxi)
She states in the Introduction, “Our intellectualism, like our persistent critiques of American democracy, raises questions about the possibilities of an expansive and expanding community in a racially and economically polarized United States. These questions about the struggles of black Americans pertain to the entire racialized nation… Often black intellectuals’ queries call out injustices while sustaining the vision of intergenerational community and responsibilities. For instance, during a February 1990 Black History Month performance, Maya Angelou asked the audience … ‘If your ancestors were to appear today would they say, in looking at you, ‘So this is what I struggled and died for?’” (Pg. 3-4)
She notes, “Contemporary understandings of black intellectualism are traceable to late 19th century liberalism and its conventional antiracism. The phrase ‘Talented Tenth’, generally associated with Du Bois’s 1903 essay of the same title, originated in 1896 among Northern white liberals of the American Baptist Home Missionary Society, which established black colleges to train Negro elites… Henry Morehouse … developed the phrase ‘the Talented Tenth’ to distinguish his liberal arts education programs and their students from the ‘average or mediocre’ black intellect that aligned itself with Washington’s ideology of vocational education for race advancement.” (Pg. 16-17)
She says of Du Bois, “This internationalist anticapitalist retained a refined elitism, though: Mass and class are to unite, but caste remains. Now only the materially privileged who also possess ‘noblesse oblige’ qualified as ‘leadership and authority within the group.’ At this stage, Du Bois was not willing to demobilize the elite vanguard… Nevertheless, Du Bois would continue to whittle away at elitism in black leadership.” (Pg. 23)
Later, she observes, “Black reflections on the [Million Man March] (and the O.J. Simpson verdict that also occurred in October) were not uniformly progressive. When the New York Times magazine published Kristal Brent Zook’s 1995 ‘A Manifesto of Sorts for a Black Feminist Movement’ as its black feminist response to black unity or nationalist discourse, it replaced what some considered to be an essentialist, antiwhite and antifeminist black narrative with an amblyopic, antiblack female diatribe. The Times gave considerable exposure to a writer unknown to feminist or black organizations as a representative of the next wave of black feminism; predictably this manifesto garnered legitimacy via the Times and was subsequently used in university classes as a representative text on black feminism.
“What may not have been discussed in those classrooms was its problematic content. Zook’s claims about nonelite black women recycled antiblack caricatures to promote a black, post-modern feminist elite represented by Zook… This ‘new feminism’ is most problematic because its primary spokespersons are largely young elites with tenuous ties to nonelite black communities and black organizations and reflects an inexperienced leadership alienated from black workers and neighborhoods… The limitations of the essay and its flawed scholarship… reminded some black intellectuals of an alleged penchant of the New York Times to publish contentious articles about blacks (authored by blacks) that disparage African-American intellectual ability while simultaneously providing blacks as spectacles for the paper’s largely white elite readership.” (Pg. 126-127)
She continues, “A double standard for nonelite black women and elite black men measures the former group by a stricter code of conduct. For example, the manifesto criticizes black women as ‘supporters of Farrakhan’ without noting that some black women who sent their sons to the Million Man March distinguished between ‘the message and the messenger’ and welcomed any opportunity to diminish the high mortality rates in black neighborhoods… The new manifesto of sorts … repeatedly cites Cornel West as a model for progressive black intellectualism. Zook fails to mention that West supported, attended and defended the March… Henry Louis Gates Jr. cites West … as affirming the verdict (and Simpson’s possible innocence). West, like everyone else, has that right. It is hypocritical, though, to allow a Harvard University professor to take unpopular positions without being dismissed as intellectually or morally deficient… while simultaneously stigmatizing nonelite black females for similar stances.” (Pg. 128-129)
She reports, “West emphasizes the importance of participating in political activist struggles as well as criticizing elites… Yet West’s own literary work, which critiques the black intellectual as inherently progressive, reveals contradictory and ambivalent stances toward the activists he promotes as models… He writes that the declining quality of black intellectualism stems from both the African-American community’s lack of institutional support for intellectuals as well as (elite) black intellectuals’ failures to remain organically linked to the community… West argues against the antipathy of the African-American community for ‘the life of the mind’… West’s analysis makes important contributions toward understanding a form of American intellectualism. However, a number of points should be kept in mind. First… most elite intellectuals may have a limited impact on transforming oppressive conditions that nonelites endure not because they are intellectuals, but because they are elites, and, as elites, they shy away from radical confrontations for substantive political change.” (Pg. 157-159)
She goes on, “[West’s] ‘The Dilemma of the Black Intellectual’ contradictorily recommends Marxian philosophy as a temporary but necessary learning phase, and pronounces Marxism a ‘debilitating’ model that caters to the ‘cathartic needs’ of blacks while working to ‘stifle the further development of black critical consciousness.’... However… he generalizes to all black intellectual engagement with Marxism. His only evidence is the paltry ‘great literature’ among black Marxists. Yet there is also a paltry amount of ‘great’ or even good literature by those who identify as black postmodernists, which is presumably West’s own cadre of intellectuals that supplants the Marxists.” (Pg. 163)
This book will be of keen interest to those studying African-American issues, activism, intellectuals, and more.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews