The Intuitionist

Racial uplift is a principle that calls on the wealthiest and most educated Black Americans to lift up their race. The term was popularized around the turn of the century by Black intellectuals like W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. In his 1903 essay “The Talented Tenth,” which refers to an economic and political leadership class among African Americans, Du Bois wrote, “The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth.” (Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Talented Tenth.” The Negro Problem. New York: J. Pott & Company. 1903.)

Over the years, the concept of racial uplift as an effective vehicle for achieving equal rights has come under increased scrutiny—including by Du Bois himself, who observed in frustration that many Black leaders never returned to their communities after achieving professional success. More modern critiques point out that racial uplift fails to address the institutionalized nature of systemic racism, with University of Maryland Professor Christopher H. Foreman:

[T]he successive strategies embraced by the champions of racial uplift have all encountered their practical and political limits. For the most part these strategies have not so much failed as fallen victim to inevitable exhaustion.