What do you think?
Rate this book
The Future of the Race
Almost one-hundred years ago, W.E.B. Du Bois proposed the notion of the "talented tenth," an African American elite that would serve as leaders and models for the larger black community. In this unprecedented collaboration, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cornel West--two of Du Bois's most prominent intellectual descendants--reassess that relationship and its implications for the future of black Americans. If the 1990s are the best of times for the heirs of the Talented Tenth, they are unquestionably worse for the growing black underclass. As they examine the origins of this widening gulf and propose solutions for it, Gates and West combine memoir and biography, social analysis and cultural survey into a book that is incisive and compassionate, cautionary and deeply stirring.
"Today's most public African American intellectual voices...West and Gates have made a valuable contribution."--Julian Bond, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Brilliant...a social, cultural and political blueprint...that attempts to illumine the future path for blacks and American democracy."--New York Daily News
"Henry Louis Gates., Jr., and Cornel West are among the most renowned American intellectuals of our time."--New York Times Book Review
"Today's most public African American intellectual voices...West and Gates have made a valuable contribution."--Julian Bond, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Brilliant...a social, cultural and political blueprint...that attempts to illumine the future path for blacks and American democracy."--New York Daily News
"Henry Louis Gates., Jr., and Cornel West are among the most renowned American intellectuals of our time."--New York Times Book Review
196 pages, Paperback
First published March 26, 1996
15 people are currently reading
615 people want to read
About the author
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
291 books863 followersHenry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. is a Professor of African and African-American Studies at Harvard University and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. He is well-known as a literary critic, an editor of literature, and a proponent of black literature and black cultural studies.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
May 28, 2013
I recommend that if you are planning to read, or have recently read, W.E.B. Du Bois's 1903 essay `The Talented Tenth', that you also follow through and read `The Future Of The Race'. I, myself, landed on this book after reading The Talented Tenth (Illustrated). `The Future Of The Race', published in 1996, is a collection of essays by two of the foremost leading black public intellectuals: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cornel West. The compositions by Gates and West specifically address W.E.B. Du Bois and `The Talented Tenth' and offer a more contemporary perspective on Du Bois's call for Black intelligentsia to be the leaders of the race. Dr. West would probably state that his critique of Du Bois at the turn of the 20th Century is out of respect, admiration and love; however, he does not hesitate in underscoring the areas where Du Bois is lacking:
"The grand example of Du Bois remains problematic principally owing to his inadequate interpretation of the human condition and his inability to immerse himself fully in the rich cultural currents of black everyday life." (p. 55)
In the essay, `The Parable of the Talents', Gates interjects his own collegiate life experiences to provide the framework to the notion that so much diversity (socioeconomic, cultural, class, etc...) exists within African-American community that just the intelligent tenth of same group would find it difficult to satisfy Du Bois's request to `save the Negro race':
"As economic differences increase, the need to maintain the appearance of cultural and ideological conformity also increases. But it is these fake masks of conformity that disguise how very vast black class differentials really are. And no amount of kinte cloth or Kwanzaa celebrations will change this." (p. 37).
For convenience and reference, both 'The Talented Tenth' and Du Bois's own critique some 45 years later, `The Talented Tenth Memorial Address', is located in the book's appendix. A great all-in-one book for readers.
"The grand example of Du Bois remains problematic principally owing to his inadequate interpretation of the human condition and his inability to immerse himself fully in the rich cultural currents of black everyday life." (p. 55)
In the essay, `The Parable of the Talents', Gates interjects his own collegiate life experiences to provide the framework to the notion that so much diversity (socioeconomic, cultural, class, etc...) exists within African-American community that just the intelligent tenth of same group would find it difficult to satisfy Du Bois's request to `save the Negro race':
"As economic differences increase, the need to maintain the appearance of cultural and ideological conformity also increases. But it is these fake masks of conformity that disguise how very vast black class differentials really are. And no amount of kinte cloth or Kwanzaa celebrations will change this." (p. 37).
For convenience and reference, both 'The Talented Tenth' and Du Bois's own critique some 45 years later, `The Talented Tenth Memorial Address', is located in the book's appendix. A great all-in-one book for readers.
November 9, 2024
TWO LEADING ESSAYS, AND DU BOIS’S ESSAY WITH HIS OWN ‘CRITIQUE’ OF IT
Co-Authors Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cornel West wrote in the Preface of this 1996 book, “This book resulted from a series of conversations in which we have engaged over the past two years, at the offices of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Harvard University, where we are both professors charged with the task of building a premier research and teaching program in African-American Studies… We and our colleagues regularly engage in discussions about the nature and function of our department---as well as its responsibilities… to the larger African-American community, past, present, and future. A central part of our mission as teachers is to analyze, and reinterpret for our generation, the great writings of the black past, showing how they continue to speak to us today…
“[We], two ‘grandchildren’ of the group of intellectuals [W.E.B.] Du Bois dubbed ‘the Talented Tenth,’ have sought to think through---and critique---Du Bois’s challenge to service that, we deeply believe, the formally educated owe to all those who have not benefited from the expanded opportunities afforded by the gains in civil rights and its concomitant, the programmatic attempt to fulfill America’s commitment to equal opportunity, popularly known as ‘affirmative action.’ This is not intended to be a book that makes policy recommendations… Rather, this is a book of reflection, consisting of two essays that map our separate responses to Du Bois’s provocative thesis…
“In [this book] we explore a pivotal aspect of Du Bois’s intellectual legacy, and so have included the essay to which we are responding, as well as Du Bois’s own critique of it (first published in 1948, and reprinted here in its entirety for the first time)…”
Gates’ opening essay is partly autobiographical. He recalls, “How better to serve our people, then, than as students at an elite institution? ‘Changing the system by knowing just that the system is’---that was our rationale…Not everything was fantasy and posture; in 1970, certainly, the issues of the day were real enough… our growing conviction was that such were the evils against which only a moral elite of the young could prevail.” (Pg. 17) He continues, “My grandfather was colored, my father was Negro, and I am black---so I wrote in my college application.” (Pg. 18)
He notes, “Du Bois once believed that educated Negroes would uplift the race… Forty years after Brown v. Board, most black students attend majority black schools; a third attend schools that are 90 to 100 percent black. Everything was supposed to have been different from the way it turned out.” (Pg. 25)
He acknowledges, “Pollsters have long known of the remarkable gap between the leaders and the led in black America. A 1985 survey found that most blacks favored the death penalty and prayer in public schools, while most black leaders opposed those things. Most blacks opposed school busing, while most black leaders favored it. Three times as many blacks opposed abortion rights as their leaders did. Indeed, on many key social issues, blacks are more conservative than whites. If the numbers of black Republicans are on the rise… it would be unwise to dismiss the phenomenon.” (Pg. 33)
Cornel West states in his essay, “My fundamental problem with Du Bois is his inadequate grasp of the tragicomic sense of life—a refusal candidly to confront the sheer absurdity of the human condition. This tragicomic sense… propels us toward suicide or madness unless we are buffered by ritual, cushioned by community, or sustained by art. Du Bois’s inability to immerse himself in black everyday life precluded his access to the distinctive black tragicomic sense and black encounter with the absurd… there seemed to be something in him that alienated ordinary black people. In short, he was reluctant to learn fundamental lessons about life---and about himself---from them.” (Pg. 57-58)
He notes, “Black people are first and foremost an African people, in that the cultural baggage they brought with them to the New World was grounded in their earlier responses to African conditions. Yet the rich African traditions… would undergo creative transformation when brought into contact with European languages and rituals in the context of the New World. For example, there would be no jazz without New World Africans with European languages and instruments.” (Pg. 80-81)
He concludes, “In the end, Du Bois’s Enlightenment worldview, Victorian strategies, and American optimism failed him. He left America in militant despair… and mistakenly hoped for the rise of a strong postcolonial and united Africa… Du Bois concluded that black strivings in a twilight civilization were unbearable for him yet still imperative for others---even if he could not envision freedom in America as realizable.” (Pg. 111-112)
In Du Bois’s ‘critique’ of his essay (an address delivered at the Nineteenth Grand Boulé Conclave in 1948), he admits, “I assumed that with knowledge, sacrifice would automatically follow. In my youth and idealism, I did not realize that selfishness is even more natural than sacrifice. I made the assumption of its wide availability because of the spirit of sacrifice learned in my mission school training.” (Pg. 161)
He says of the Sigma Pi Phi fraternity, “We consist of 440 families… Of 3,000,000 Negro families, we represent a tenth, but a ten-thousandth of the group… In occupation our membership is not well-balanced. Nearly half… are physicians, dentists, and pharmacists… We do not represent then typical America. Nor do we represent at all the scientific and social leadership of the modern world, because we are overloaded with members of the professions, weighted toward American business, while science and art ... fall far behind. We are then in the mass, an old, timid, conservative group.” (Pg. 169-171)
He adds, “Basically this confronts us with two problems: the leadership of the masses and the sacrifice necessary to leadership. The uplift of the mass cannot be left to chance… I think we can free our own mass by organization and group influence exercised through a self-sacrificing leadership. This is primarily a question of character which I failed to emphasize in my first proposal of a Talented Tenth.” (Pg. 171)
He concludes, “The sacrifice necessary to provide [large] funds should be regarded not as sentimental charity or mushy religious fervor but as foresight and investment in the future of the Negro in America… We may reach the high ideal when again the tithe… will go to the perfectly feasible effort of so civilizing the American Negro that he will be able to lead the world and will want to do so.” (Pg.177)
This book will be of great interest to those studying African-American studies and history.
Co-Authors Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cornel West wrote in the Preface of this 1996 book, “This book resulted from a series of conversations in which we have engaged over the past two years, at the offices of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Harvard University, where we are both professors charged with the task of building a premier research and teaching program in African-American Studies… We and our colleagues regularly engage in discussions about the nature and function of our department---as well as its responsibilities… to the larger African-American community, past, present, and future. A central part of our mission as teachers is to analyze, and reinterpret for our generation, the great writings of the black past, showing how they continue to speak to us today…
“[We], two ‘grandchildren’ of the group of intellectuals [W.E.B.] Du Bois dubbed ‘the Talented Tenth,’ have sought to think through---and critique---Du Bois’s challenge to service that, we deeply believe, the formally educated owe to all those who have not benefited from the expanded opportunities afforded by the gains in civil rights and its concomitant, the programmatic attempt to fulfill America’s commitment to equal opportunity, popularly known as ‘affirmative action.’ This is not intended to be a book that makes policy recommendations… Rather, this is a book of reflection, consisting of two essays that map our separate responses to Du Bois’s provocative thesis…
“In [this book] we explore a pivotal aspect of Du Bois’s intellectual legacy, and so have included the essay to which we are responding, as well as Du Bois’s own critique of it (first published in 1948, and reprinted here in its entirety for the first time)…”
Gates’ opening essay is partly autobiographical. He recalls, “How better to serve our people, then, than as students at an elite institution? ‘Changing the system by knowing just that the system is’---that was our rationale…Not everything was fantasy and posture; in 1970, certainly, the issues of the day were real enough… our growing conviction was that such were the evils against which only a moral elite of the young could prevail.” (Pg. 17) He continues, “My grandfather was colored, my father was Negro, and I am black---so I wrote in my college application.” (Pg. 18)
He notes, “Du Bois once believed that educated Negroes would uplift the race… Forty years after Brown v. Board, most black students attend majority black schools; a third attend schools that are 90 to 100 percent black. Everything was supposed to have been different from the way it turned out.” (Pg. 25)
He acknowledges, “Pollsters have long known of the remarkable gap between the leaders and the led in black America. A 1985 survey found that most blacks favored the death penalty and prayer in public schools, while most black leaders opposed those things. Most blacks opposed school busing, while most black leaders favored it. Three times as many blacks opposed abortion rights as their leaders did. Indeed, on many key social issues, blacks are more conservative than whites. If the numbers of black Republicans are on the rise… it would be unwise to dismiss the phenomenon.” (Pg. 33)
Cornel West states in his essay, “My fundamental problem with Du Bois is his inadequate grasp of the tragicomic sense of life—a refusal candidly to confront the sheer absurdity of the human condition. This tragicomic sense… propels us toward suicide or madness unless we are buffered by ritual, cushioned by community, or sustained by art. Du Bois’s inability to immerse himself in black everyday life precluded his access to the distinctive black tragicomic sense and black encounter with the absurd… there seemed to be something in him that alienated ordinary black people. In short, he was reluctant to learn fundamental lessons about life---and about himself---from them.” (Pg. 57-58)
He notes, “Black people are first and foremost an African people, in that the cultural baggage they brought with them to the New World was grounded in their earlier responses to African conditions. Yet the rich African traditions… would undergo creative transformation when brought into contact with European languages and rituals in the context of the New World. For example, there would be no jazz without New World Africans with European languages and instruments.” (Pg. 80-81)
He concludes, “In the end, Du Bois’s Enlightenment worldview, Victorian strategies, and American optimism failed him. He left America in militant despair… and mistakenly hoped for the rise of a strong postcolonial and united Africa… Du Bois concluded that black strivings in a twilight civilization were unbearable for him yet still imperative for others---even if he could not envision freedom in America as realizable.” (Pg. 111-112)
In Du Bois’s ‘critique’ of his essay (an address delivered at the Nineteenth Grand Boulé Conclave in 1948), he admits, “I assumed that with knowledge, sacrifice would automatically follow. In my youth and idealism, I did not realize that selfishness is even more natural than sacrifice. I made the assumption of its wide availability because of the spirit of sacrifice learned in my mission school training.” (Pg. 161)
He says of the Sigma Pi Phi fraternity, “We consist of 440 families… Of 3,000,000 Negro families, we represent a tenth, but a ten-thousandth of the group… In occupation our membership is not well-balanced. Nearly half… are physicians, dentists, and pharmacists… We do not represent then typical America. Nor do we represent at all the scientific and social leadership of the modern world, because we are overloaded with members of the professions, weighted toward American business, while science and art ... fall far behind. We are then in the mass, an old, timid, conservative group.” (Pg. 169-171)
He adds, “Basically this confronts us with two problems: the leadership of the masses and the sacrifice necessary to leadership. The uplift of the mass cannot be left to chance… I think we can free our own mass by organization and group influence exercised through a self-sacrificing leadership. This is primarily a question of character which I failed to emphasize in my first proposal of a Talented Tenth.” (Pg. 171)
He concludes, “The sacrifice necessary to provide [large] funds should be regarded not as sentimental charity or mushy religious fervor but as foresight and investment in the future of the Negro in America… We may reach the high ideal when again the tithe… will go to the perfectly feasible effort of so civilizing the American Negro that he will be able to lead the world and will want to do so.” (Pg.177)
This book will be of great interest to those studying African-American studies and history.
December 5, 2013
I wasn't particularly fascinated by this joint production. The first half of the book was written by Gates and sums up to a rather mundane reminiscence of Gates' college days. The second half, by West, is heavier on the critical analysis...as is typical of his style (love it or leave it). After breezing through Gates' portion, West will certainly slow you down. Gates redeems himself in the end with an analysis of Du Bois' "The Talented Tenth." The book itself is salvaged by a complete reprinting of Du Bois' famous essay, which I hadn't read in its entirety until now, followed by a copy of a memorial address he delivered on The Talented Tenth forty years after its initial publishing. Had it not been for Gates' first half, I would've considered a four-star rating here.
March 21, 2011
A brutal if not bitter examination of W.E.B. DuBois' talented tenth; full of personal soul searching and finally appealing to what I would call strength of character to carry on for a cause "not hopeless but unhopeful."
November 26, 2007
Would like to read again alongside of DuBois.
April 4, 2008
Two African-American intellectuals. Even if you don't read it, you should have it on your shelf for a rainy day.
September 10, 2008
very enlightening
December 20, 2008
Both are such great, brilliant minds — enough said!
June 26, 2012
This book is truly a thought-provoking partnership between Gates and West.
December 17, 2013
Only had to read excerpts for my class but it was very boring to me. It was informative but did not hold my attention.
October 18, 2014
I've been following Dr. West since 2009. I actually wanted to read his biography before taking on his actual writings. This will be another happy reread for me.
March 17, 2023
This is a fascinating artifact, set in the middle of the 1990s, nearly 30 years ago, and written by two of the "grandchildren of the group of intellectuals Du Bois dubbed 'the Talented Tenth.'" It features essays by three Black scholars: Henry Louis Gates Jr., Cornel West, and W.E.B. Du Bois, the first two interacting with and building on the insights of the latter.
Gates's essay "Parable of the Talents" more autobiographical, recounting the story of his education at an elite school (Yale), with reflections on race and class woven throughout. West's essay is more literary, filled with allusions to Richard Wright and Toni Morrison, with copious endnotes.
The volume concludes with a reprinting of Du Bois's essay, "The Talented Tenth" (1903), with an introductory essay by Gates, and concludes with Du Bois's revisiting the concept in "The Talented Tenth Memorial Address: (1948).
There are so many fascinating insights in this book. I'm interested to trace out what impact these essays had on the next 30 years of Black scholarship, Black intellectuals, but more importantly, Black culture in America as a whole. Gates and West continue to write and speak and produce an array of material. This book documents their thoughts on the responsibilities of elite educated leaders to society at large near the beginning of their careers, and I found it all fascinating and instructive.
Gates's essay "Parable of the Talents" more autobiographical, recounting the story of his education at an elite school (Yale), with reflections on race and class woven throughout. West's essay is more literary, filled with allusions to Richard Wright and Toni Morrison, with copious endnotes.
The volume concludes with a reprinting of Du Bois's essay, "The Talented Tenth" (1903), with an introductory essay by Gates, and concludes with Du Bois's revisiting the concept in "The Talented Tenth Memorial Address: (1948).
There are so many fascinating insights in this book. I'm interested to trace out what impact these essays had on the next 30 years of Black scholarship, Black intellectuals, but more importantly, Black culture in America as a whole. Gates and West continue to write and speak and produce an array of material. This book documents their thoughts on the responsibilities of elite educated leaders to society at large near the beginning of their careers, and I found it all fascinating and instructive.
June 28, 2024
Two essays- one by Henry Louis Gates Junior, and one by Cornell West, both speak to different aspects of black America. I found. Gates’ essay to be a little confusing. It was hard to follow. He seemed to jump from one topic to the next, and in my opinion didn’t tie them together coherently. Although it’s most likely that he’s just so much more intelligent than I am that I missed his point.
West’s essay focused primarily on the life of WEB Dubois, and while it was easier to follow, I still didn’t love it. However, his perceptions were spot on when he said, “ the progressive wing of the Black elite will split into a vociferous (primarily male-led) nationalist camp that opts for self-help at the lower and middle levels of the entrepreneurial sectors of the global economy, and a visionary (predominantly women-led) radical Democratic camp that works assiduously to keep hope alive…”
West’s essay focused primarily on the life of WEB Dubois, and while it was easier to follow, I still didn’t love it. However, his perceptions were spot on when he said, “ the progressive wing of the Black elite will split into a vociferous (primarily male-led) nationalist camp that opts for self-help at the lower and middle levels of the entrepreneurial sectors of the global economy, and a visionary (predominantly women-led) radical Democratic camp that works assiduously to keep hope alive…”
October 30, 2018
I reread this as part of a course on Social Class and Education I am teaching this fall. I was surprised to see the negative reviews on this site. I think it's a powerful collaboration and text. What I find especially valuable is how Gates and West raise issues of class division in the black community. That makes sense—they are, after all, responding to a black scholar and activist (W. E. B. Du Bois) whose thinking depends on the idea of identifying and fostering a "Talented Tenth" in the black community. It's a problematic idea, clearly. The question is whether it is necessary as well.
July 27, 2018
This book, now over 20 years old, exposed me to some different ideas in thinking about the African American experience in this country, even if I didn't always agree with everything that the authors said.
January 26, 2021
Henry quotes from Ralph Ellison (said), "you gain your invisibility not so much because others refuse to see you but because you refuse to run the gamut of your own humanity." --powerful alone.
Cornell states that the profound black cultural efforts to express the truth of modern tragic existence and build on the ruins of modern absurd experiences at the core of American culture to the end of this dreadful century (p 78). He speaks on the twilight civilization--William Faulkner, M. Twain, even Tolstoy (Russian) and Kafka. The other novelists like R. Wright, J. Baldwin, Toni Morrison to guide us through the veil of such absurdities and tragedies.
Black culture has been obsessed with black sadness, sorrow, agony and anguish, numbing effects of such misery and speaks on black artists like Billie Holiday's vocal leaps, etc. (p 81).
He elaborates from studies that black people are known as problem-people not people with problems (p 84).
There's quite a bit of literature, readings and research put into this; and reads more scholarly than normal. It's an okay read but definitely thought-provoking and naming so many people who played a part in the black culture as a whole.
Disclaimer: I borrowed a copy from work library and giving honest insight on it.
Cornell states that the profound black cultural efforts to express the truth of modern tragic existence and build on the ruins of modern absurd experiences at the core of American culture to the end of this dreadful century (p 78). He speaks on the twilight civilization--William Faulkner, M. Twain, even Tolstoy (Russian) and Kafka. The other novelists like R. Wright, J. Baldwin, Toni Morrison to guide us through the veil of such absurdities and tragedies.
Black culture has been obsessed with black sadness, sorrow, agony and anguish, numbing effects of such misery and speaks on black artists like Billie Holiday's vocal leaps, etc. (p 81).
He elaborates from studies that black people are known as problem-people not people with problems (p 84).
There's quite a bit of literature, readings and research put into this; and reads more scholarly than normal. It's an okay read but definitely thought-provoking and naming so many people who played a part in the black culture as a whole.
Disclaimer: I borrowed a copy from work library and giving honest insight on it.
February 14, 2023
preferred the CW section over the HLG section. Paired well with BTW's The Negro Problem.
Read
January 16, 2018I think what bothers some readers, myself included, is how academic Gates' and West's essays are. They're the two greatest-living Black scholars in America, and they take up the legendary W.E.B Du Bois' notion of "The Talented Tenth" with the necessary measure of a century worth of progress, strife, disappointment, triumph, and greif. Gates and West dutifully counter Du Bois knowing full-well that "race" is a pernitious social construct; and they do so knowing how much damage that construct, one among many unhealthy social habits in American society, has done to many people, themselves included. But must Gates and West be so.... dry? Maybe. Or maybe I should look to Dr King, or Malcolm X, or President Obama for inspiration? (each in his own, very different manner and methods, of course).
Style complaints aside, this book serves its purpose extremely well-- a retrospective of the "Talented Tenth" after Brown v Board, after Rosa Parks, after the Freedom Riders, after the Civil Rights Act, after Voting Rights Act, after the War on Poverty, War on Crime, War on Drugs, after affirmative action, and before the first Black President and his, ahem, Orange antithesis.
Style complaints aside, this book serves its purpose extremely well-- a retrospective of the "Talented Tenth" after Brown v Board, after Rosa Parks, after the Freedom Riders, after the Civil Rights Act, after Voting Rights Act, after the War on Poverty, War on Crime, War on Drugs, after affirmative action, and before the first Black President and his, ahem, Orange antithesis.
September 7, 2018
A good analysis of the socioeconomic future of Black America.
Read
September 25, 2017This bifurcated book by two African American scholars giving a hypothesis on "The Future Of The Race" premise on the "The Talented Tenth" thesis wrote by W.E.B Dubois. A great book for someone who enjoy African American studies. Mr. Gates gives his analysis from his experiences interwhining Historical Accounts to evade the probable future.
Mr. West dissect the thesis by Mr.Dubois in a dramatic fashion.
Mr. West dissect the thesis by Mr.Dubois in a dramatic fashion.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews