5 | What’s Beef? | The Talented Tenth
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Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Black History for Real early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Warning. Today's episode mentions sexual violence and language that some may find offensive. Please be advised. Conscious, when you think of modern-day Black excellence, who comes to mind and why? Man, for me, I think of, like, Issa Rae. Mm-hmm.

And how she got it out the mud. And to me, when I think of black excellence, I think about it in a way of like defiance in terms of like you did it your own way in spite of everybody telling you to do it some way, this way or that way. Like you did not conform and you showed your excellence despite how

how much hate they was throwing on you. You never cease to amaze me. You're so poignant. You're so smart. And I think all the things you brought up about what Black excellence means are really going to tie in nicely to today's episode, because we are talking about W.E.B. Du Bois. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he is the father of Black excellence, or at least the idea that some of us can be excellent. His

His talented 10th theory was controversial at the time for its elitist tone, and it remains so today. But he was also considered progressive for his time, and progressive ideas are always met with resistance. So we are going to explain where Du Bois was coming from and get into some of the beefs his ideas inspired. Let's get into some Black History for real.

Today, April 24th, 1899, the manhunt for Negro fugitive Sam Hose continues. On April 12th, Hose murdered his boss in cold blood, violated his wife and infant son. The black beast is rumored to be in Marshallville on a farm where his mother resides. A $1,600 reward awaits the brave man who captures this monster. Du Bois shuts off the broadcast. He's disgusted. A mob of 300 white men have been hunting Sam Hose for more than a week now.

Word around town is Sam's a hard worker. He got into a fight with this white boss. Things went left and he lodged an ax into the white man's head and ran for his life.

Du Bois has moved to Atlanta after living in northern desegregated states. He's quickly learned that the rules for black folks are different than those of white folks and when it comes to Sam Hose, he knows that a clear case of self-defense can and will be turned into a murder charge. Du Bois types up a clear-eyed defense of Hose. Just the facts. He knows the dispute had been about money. Sam's boss felt disrespected that a negro was standing up for himself.

to the point that he aimed a gun at Sam, which ultimately led Sam to launch the axe. And now rumors had begun to spread that Sam raped his boss' wife and molested the baby too.

But Du Bois doesn't believe the rumors, so he types his last words and snatches the paper out of the typewriter. He is on a mission to prove to the public Sam is innocent and acted in self-defense. Du Bois thinks if he can get this letter published in the local newspaper, there's a chance the mob of 300 men will be empathetic and back off Sam. Du Bois storms out of his home and heads to the offices of the Atlanta Constitution.

His plan is to give the letter to Joel Chandler Harris, an editor at the paper and author of the Uncle Remus stories. Du Bois would rather not deal with a paternalistic racist like Harris, who thinks of the Negro as a separated lesser citizen, but a man's life is at stake.

Barely a mile from his home, he hears a group of rowdy white men cheering. "We got the beast hung by his neck, sliced the skin off his face, cut his genitals off, ears too, gave him what he deserved."

Du Bois stops dead in his tracks. He can't believe what he's hearing. He turns his head and sees a pair of knuckles in the window of a storefront. They are selling for 25 cents. The brutality, the sheer barbarism. Du Bois' heart sinks to his stomach.

He tosses his letter onto the street and heads home to where his wife and two-year-old son are waiting. His mind is in a fog. He decides that he can't just be a calm, cool, and detached scientist while Negroes are lynched, murdered, and starved. In other words, he can't just talk about it. He has to be about it.

From Wondery, this is Black History For Real, where we chronicle the stories of movers and shakers of black history all over the world. The stories will inspire you,

educate you, and more often than not, leave you shaking your damn head unconsciously. And I'm Francesca Ramsey. In this four-part series, we're covering some of the brightest minds of the Harlem Renaissance era, pioneers in Black excellence. Today, we're talking about W.E.B. Du Bois, an author, educator, and activist who stayed beefing with Black thought leaders of his time, especially about the best solution to the so-called Negro problem. His answer? The talented 10th.

It's September 1885. 17-year-old William Edward Burgard Du Bois is sitting in a Jim Crow train headed to Nashville. The seats are rugged, run down, but his spirits are high.

See, he's leaving his integrated New England community for the first time for college. See, what happened was W.E.B. got accepted to Fish University as a sophomore, skipping his freshman year. Migrating to a new environment and wanting to take a piece of home with him, Du Bois packs up everything he's ever owned. His books, the blue and white china his mother used to set out for the holidays, and his grandfather's shovel.

Fisk University is the premier university for Black students in 1885, and it's the first time Du Bois will be in a community with a large number of Black people. But he's also apprehensive for a few reasons. Although he appreciates the opportunity to study at Fisk, his dream was to attend Harvard. But even if they had accepted him, he couldn't afford the tuition. It took the donations from four different community churches to get him to Fisk, each pledging $25 a year to cover the tuition.

So, Harvard would have to wait. Du Bois is blessed to be broke, for real. Otherwise, he might not have known how much he needed the other black intellectuals that he eventually meets in Nashville. But his family is against the trip. They see the South as a wasteland of foul and racism. He sees promise in the black South. They need educated black leaders to grow in power. And Du Bois plans on being one of those leaders.

He also yearns for a change of scenery. He feels alone. Du Bois belongs with the smart kids, but Black intellectuals are few and far between back home in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. On top of having no community, his mom recently died and his dad left them a long time ago. At least at Fisk, he'll be surrounded by educated Black folks. Du Bois would be vindicated in his excitement, but little does he know the South is a much different place than Massachusetts.

Now, I'm going to say this before I say what I'm going to say. My grandfather always said the pathway to hell is paved with good intentions. I can acknowledge that Du Bois had amazing noble intentions when it came to moving in the segregated South. However,

The way that him and his mother talked about moving to the South and the way that it was segregated almost to me put a little bit of like anti-black pathology or put a little bit more value on the integrated spaces over the segregated spaces. And it had a impact on how they view the knowledge or intellectual ability of the black folks down South. Because think about it. He's 17 years old.

And he already feels that if he's able to move down south to the racial white land of the center of the south, that he'll be able to rise and be one of the leaders to do X, Y, Z. Though that's very noble. To me, it still sets up like a superiority complex in a bit. Yeah, there's definitely this underlying tone of I need to be around people that are smarter and only attaching influence.

intellectualism or these are the types of people I want to be around because they're in XYZ spaces, when the reality is there are smart people everywhere and there are lots of people who get accepted into certain spaces and assume to be smart because of where they come from, how they speak, how much money they have, how they dress. And those things don't actually make them smarter. It's a performance of sorts. And it's just...

The respectability politics, even when they come from a place of, quote unquote, good intentions, like I want to be better and I want to be around smart people, you're inadvertently saying that certain types of people are not smart and therefore not worthy of your time and attention and energy, when the reality is we can learn things and be enriched by people from all different walks of life, not just someone who has money.

You know, the quote unquote right letters at the end of their degree. For sure. And I think that this why this this episode in particular is, I think, very fairly named Westleaf, especially in concept of the Terrence of Tenth, because we don't see an overlying, you know, tension in almost everywhere we turn in this story of how white acceptance and respectability politics play and how black people view ourselves sometimes, especially when it comes to our worth.

Du Bois arrives at Fisk, and for the first time in a long time, he feels he's finally around his peers, true Black intellectuals. But even still, he's surprised to find out how little he knew about Black culture. See, at Fisk, he gets exposed to Black music.

Prior to that, he was listening to English hymns, even throwing in some German music into his musical rotation. But at college, he was immersed in black culture. He even meets the famed Fish Jubilee singers who sang Negro spirituals and literally performed for kings.

When I learned more about the Fisk Jubilee Singers, I was blown away when I heard that when they first started, they would sing from a basement so that the white audiences who loved their music wouldn't know they were black, which is just wild to me because you know when it's us, right? Right.

Come on, you know what we sound like. Come on now. And then they had to essentially come out as black. I'm sorry. I know, I know. Listen to this quote. A shocked reviewer. He was shocked. He was just, he couldn't believe, scandalized. He said that he could not believe that these were a group of, quote, genuine Negroes. Can you believe it?

Man, man, man, that could be a whole episode in itself. We ain't gonna go there, though. We ain't gonna go there. And for Du Bois, that was the best part of Fisk. Being around genuine Negroes. But whites in the South didn't appreciate uppity black folk like Du Bois. He learned quickly that the violent racism his family warned him about, it was very real. But that didn't stop Du Bois in his mission to become exemplary.

In 1888, his intelligence would lead him to receive a bachelor's degree from Fisk that helped him accomplish his dream, getting accepted into Harvard University. W.E.B.'s ultimate goal is to uplift the black race. And what better way to do that than by becoming the first black person to earn a Ph.D. from an Ivy League school? Black excellence indeed.

It's 1889 in Boston's West End, and Du Bois knocks on the door of a massive house. This is the home of the late Judge George Louis Ruffin, which is precisely why Du Bois is feeling himself as he steadies himself on the front porch. He's a junior at Harvard, and he's quite literally standing at the doorway of Black excellence.

The door creaks open and Du Bois proudly walks inside. Judge Ruffin was the first Black graduate of the Harvard Law School and the first Black judge in the United States. These days, Du Bois is working for the woman of the house, Josephine Ruffin, writing for her weekly newspaper. He feels like he's on his way to doing big things. Inside, he mingles with the creme de la creme of Black society while servants wander around with refreshments. It's bougie as hell.

Du Bois feels at peace here, far more than he does on campus at Harvard, where there's only one other black man in his class. As his eyes scan the room, he thinks to himself. - Mm, mm, mm. There sure are a lot of beautiful young women here tonight. Josephine's daughter, Florida Ruffin, is looking like a real frail eel. That's Harlem Renaissance slang for looking like a snack. Florida approaches Du Bois.

Hey, W.E.B. So you finally made it out to the house. She reaches out to give him a friendly hug. He thinks to himself, you smell sensational. But instead of thinking out loud, he gathers himself. Hello, Florida. Thank you for having me. Not only is Florida fine, but she's smart, too. She was only the second black person to teach in Boston public schools. A whole catch. But as luck would have it,

Catches get caught. She had just gotten married last year to some big time clothes tailor. Marriage has been on Du Bois' mind lately, but he's broke as a joke. What a woman would want to be on his arm. Besides, the girls he really like are too close to passing for white. I cannot let the world even imagine that I marry a white woman, he thinks to himself. That's right. Du Bois was heavy on the brown paper bag test.

He was very aware of the optics of everything. Hints of what he called the double consciousness were bubbling up. Double consciousness is the idea of seeing yourself through the eyes of others, especially white folks. Although it seems like he had double consciousness with everybody, he decided he was going to be a star one day, and he wasn't going to mess that up by marrying the wrong woman.

Du Bois was on that black excellence tilt before it even was a thing. But as we'll see soon, being excellent does not preclude one from having beef in these civil rights streets, you feel me?

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By 1896, all of Du Bois' money and woman problems had resolved themselves. After graduating from Harvard, he gets a slew of job offers, including one from the prestigious Tuskegee Institute. While he's impressed by the school and its dynamic president, Booker T. Washington, he declines.

Instead, he accepts a teaching role at the HBCU Wilberforce University. There, he falls in love with and marries Nina Gomer, who also happens to be one of his students. First comes a son, Burghardt, who sadly dies as an infant. And then the couple have a daughter, Yolanda.

By 1903, Du Bois and Booker T. Washington had become two of the most powerful black men in America. But they aren't exactly friends, but they aren't enemies either. Kind of like Prince and Michael Jackson in 1984, a more vintage version of frenemies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, when you can't go with each other publicly, you throw shade. Well, this is how I started anyway.

Booker T. Washington is the president of Tuskegee Institute, and Du Bois is at the top of his game, writing a variety of highly influential publications. The two men, along with other black influencers, have recently collaborated on a collection of essays on the concept of racial uplift called the Negro Proverbs.

The collection addresses the black Americans position in society. It tackles laws, education, and the disenfranchisement of black folks. But what was the Negro problem? Well,

According to your average racist of the time, the Negro was the problem. But these black leaders flipped this common slur on his head. They made it clear that the real problem was a lack of equality for an entire people. The essay collection featured various writers offering their opinion on how to better the lives of black people. But remember, Booker T and Du Bois have very different views on what's best for black folks.

Washington's essay argues for self-help, racial solidarity and accommodation. Accommodation meaning black folks should be able to accept discrimination for the time being while elevating themselves through manual labor and material prosperity. Under his plan, black folks wouldn't respond to racist acts, wouldn't seek the right to vote and would tolerate segregation and discrimination.

You heard that correctly. And while being accommodating, black folks would focus their attention on pushing for free basic education, particularly in vocational or industrial trades like teaching or nursing. The emphasis was on economic independence.

I mean, it's so hard because in theory, it makes sense. But then when you actually read it out loud, it's like, don't worry about the discrimination. Worry about this other stuff. We'll take care of that later. When you can

worry about multiple things at a time. You don't have to just say, well, accept this oppression, accept being mistreated because there are more important things on the table. Like all of those things are important. I now disagree.

Du Bois, on the other hand, submits a very different essay, The Talented Tenth, which essentially says the best of us will represent the rest of us. His argument was that providing upper-class Black folks with a classical education would benefit all, as it would eventually trickle down to lower classes. Throughout the year, things have been growing more and more intense between Washington and Du Bois. The two men have been throwing shade at each other through their published essays for months.

But then, Du Bois takes their beef to the next level in his essay, "The Souls of Black Folks." He devotes the entire third chapter to criticizing Booker T, and adds insult to injury by kicking it off with a quote from Lord Byron. "From birth till death enslaved, in word, in deed, unmanned." It's a pointed jab. Booker T was born into slavery, and the essay implies that Booker T is still a slave in his mind.

♪

It has been claimed that the Negro can survive only through submission. Mr. Washington distinctly asked that black people give up, at least for the present, three things. First, political power. Second, insistence on civil rights. Third, higher education of Negro youth and concentrate all their energies on industrial education and the accumulation of wealth and the conciliation of the South.

Du Bois calls on black men to instead fight for their rights. When you think about it, both of these boys really was having a beef on resistance in terms of respectability politics. One of them was like on a survey or two, even though he's fresh out of slavery, let's prove these white folks we can work our way into freedom and to being treated equally, which obviously didn't work in slavery. And the other one is like, yeah, we're going to read our way to freedom. We're going to do it in a way by proving to these white folks we are as smart as them.

To me, both of these, I got to put it in context. It's fresh after reconstruction, but it's still like, again, both of their strategies give me a little cringe. It's the respect to both of those OGs. But knowing what I know, it's like, hey, man, these white folks going to hang you, shoot you, enslave you, whatever they're going to do to you, regardless of how your resistance is set up. And y'all arguing about that specifically is misnomer. There's no right way to do it. I mean,

I mean, listen, the fact that they called it the Negro problem tells you everything. Being black is the problem. There is no right way to do it. But man, listen, I can almost hear they eat the beat in the background.

And I know that the black elites was super duper stressed about this to you. I can hear it now. Don't be talking about y'all disagree with each other and fighting on white folks because if we fight in front of white people, they won't respect us. I know for a fact it was elders saying that back then. And to some southern black folks in particular,

Du Bois is seen as a radical northerner who don't know how the real world works. Meanwhile, Booker T's critics think he bows down to white people too much and gives them too much room in black spaces.

In 1905, Du Bois and other like-minded men formed the Niagara Movement. They make strong demands for equal rights, including a flat-out call for the end of segregation. But Cote's camp goes on the offensive and start outright attacking the Niagara Movement in the press. Their tactic backfires. The publicity just gives the movement a boost.

Du Bois won folks over with this talented 10th concept because it's easy to understand. Equality through equal education. On paper, it's a simple demand for the Black community to make.

He's also not shy about demanding full civil rights and political representation. And that's new for a Black thought leader. W.E.B. gave Booker T. hell for being too accommodating to the white folks. But in his own way, Du Bois was too. The liberal arts education he loves so much is Eurocentric. The people he spent time with were light, bright, and sometimes white. Not long after the Niagara movement collapses, Du Bois helps found the NAACP.

He sits high on his perch as director of publicity and research and editor of The Crisis magazine. He's comfortable, too comfortable. So he's completely unprepared when Marcus Garvey spins the block. The thing to understand in critiquing the concept of a talented 10th

is that it creates a hierarchy of black people that have read and have not read or black people that are more educated compared to the ones that are less educated. And it shows you that his Eurocentric upbringings and his liberal arts degree, it starts to reflect in this little concept of a talented 10th. You're absolutely correct because like you said, he's using these Eurocentric standards as a measure of success. And like we've acknowledged many times before, intelligence classifies

comes in all different forms. The way that you speak, the degrees that you have, they can absolutely open doors for you, but that does not mean that you're smarter or better than anyone. And I would push back to say that we could probably stand to learn things from people who we are assuming are not smart or we're assuming we are smarter than because when you close them off in that way, you're not receptive to the fact that they do have things to offer, that they do have

see the world differently and therefore can potentially open our eyes in different ways that we need. Oh, yeah. Because when you have those very insular ways of viewing knowledge and intellect, to me, it creates material and rhetorical violence for those individuals that don't manifest their intellect or knowledge in a way that you deem, you feel me, legitimate. I also think, too, the internal link between what happened to the Black Panther Party

and what W.E.B. Du Bois is laying the groundwork on is that because he was able to speak the register of white people very good, I believe that J. Edgar Hoover and COINTELPRO picked up on this concept of the talented 10th. And when they start talking about stopping the black messiah or stopping, you see what I'm saying, the black leader, that's the reason why I

think they had they were willing to put so much resources and going after quote-unquote black leaders because they identified them as being you feel me part of that talented 10th which is another reason why it's dangerous because it literally heightens visibility on certain individuals that makes it more rational to create violence against them april 25th 1916 the voice breezes back into his office at the naacp

He hangs his coat on the stand and breathes into his hands to warm them up. The chill in the air isn't making way for spring. He picks up the mail from his desk. There are two letters from a British boarding school where his 15-year-old daughter Yolanda is attending. The voice groans. The headmaster has recently written to say he felt Yolanda wasn't living up to academic standards. But this time,

The envelope contains two letters, one from Yolanda's friend and fellow classmate Molly Scott and the other from Yolanda herself. Du Bois opens Molly's letter first. It reads, Dear Dr. Du Bois, It quickly descends into teenage girl hysteria declaring that Yolanda would rather do anything in the world than leave school.

Molly hopes Dr. Du Bois will let Yolanda stay. As he opens his daughter's letter, Du Bois prices himself for another irrational female scream. His eyes scan the words quickly. I know I worked hard at the lessons this term, and I can't do more, and I can't help it if I'm stupid, Yolanda writes. Annoyed, he drops both letters into his top drawer.

Du Bois calls his secretary into the office. She relays a couple of messages. There are a few writers to call back. Circulation from the crisis is approaching 45,000 copies. This is great news. But their celebration is cut short by a rather intense Jamaican man who had stopped by the office. His name, Marcus Garvey. He

He was there to hand deliver a pair of tickets to a speaking engagement and formally extend an invitation for Du Bois to chair the meeting. Du Bois tells the secretary to take a quick dictation,

There's definite tension between Garvey and Du Bois. A few days pass, and Garvey receives Du Bois' rejection letter in the mail. Garvey is offended. Remembering his visit to the NAACP office, Garvey ponders on the lack of melanated people in the establishment. He thinks to himself, I don't know if that is a white office or that of the NAACP.

I read this book that gets titled Our Kind of People about the history of the black upper class in our country.

And a big part of that book has to do with W.E.B. Du Bois and the standards that he set in terms of access when it comes to different, you know, groups within, you know, the black elite. And something that always kind of struck me was how there was a tension between being white adjacent and how he talked about, you know, I'm saying whiteness. You see what I'm saying? And.

I recognize that when it comes to colorism right now, it's still that same type of tension. When we start talking about, you know, black representations in the media and how there's kind of an oversaturation for like light skin, biracial people versus, you know what I'm saying? More darker skin people. And I think it's one of the reasons why I be people want people, people like to launch criticisms about my wife being biracial, but it's like,

It's something that's missing and it's usually like, yeah, because you would assume that she's white instead of having this conversation about colorism in terms of being adjacent to white and whiteness instead of just being like, this is a white woman. And I think that's that's that's what's missing from that. But, you know, what are your thoughts, Francesca? The thing I think about a lot when it comes to respectability politics is.

the idea that oppressed people are always going to try and figure out a way to navigate their oppression, and it's not always going to be the right way. And the right way meaning it's not always going to be successful, not necessarily, but there's a right or wrong way to do it. And when it comes to respectability politics,

As frustrating as it is, there's this underlying current of, well, yeah, of course you're going to say, well, maybe if I talk this way, maybe if I look this way, maybe if I act this way, y'all will accept me. It's like coming from a place of desperation. And it's frustrating to see, but also as somebody who, you know, went to Catholic school, for example, and my parents were really strict about the way that I spoke.

In their minds, they were trying to set me up for success.

And unfortunately, you cannot navigate the world in a way that is going to prevent you from being mistreated or looked down on or put in a certain box because someone that is committed to doing that is going to do so. And just the idea that even our most intellectual black thought leaders who were able to pave the way and open all these doors for us, they were still struggling to navigate those same systems were

is heartbreaking, but also a little heartening to realize like, oh, this is just the struggle for oppressed people. It's not something that makes you or I weak or less progressive, if that's something that you're still continuing to struggle with, because it's a journey. It took me a good chunk of my life before I was able to unlearn these ideas about how I should present myself in order to look like a smart person

Black person that you should respect. And again, it's just something that unfortunately we all have to work through and unlearn in the past, in the present, and no doubt in our futures. Colorism and internalized racism is about the hierarchizing of white supremacy and how we orient our Blackness around that, both then and now.

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By January 1921, Garvey has had it with Du Bois' elitist attitude. He's sick of Du Bois clowning him in the crisis. Garvey is a leader in his own right.

His Universal Negro Improvement Association has more than 1 million members and his speeches are both well attended and reviewed. Fed up with Du Bois antics, he's advertised a speech at his headquarters in Liberty Hall. When Sunday finally arrives, the house is packed for a full hour. Garvey roasts Du Bois as the white man Negro who has never done anything yet to benefit Negroes.

He takes a swipe at the talented 10th, saying Du Bois is all on the upper tens, while he himself sided with working class blacks. Du Bois doesn't respond other than to reiterate that black Americans don't have a color problem between them. As much as I hate that they were going back and forth like this, part of me kind of loves that they actually had to commit their ideas to paper and then say them out loud like,

I wonder how many beefs would be potentially resolved today if you actually had to type your shit up and say it out loud instead of hiding behind your phone, for example, or going into the recording studio and just talking instead of actually saying, I'm going to look you in the face or I'm going to stand on the street corner. I'm going to do this speech for a group of people.

Like it kind of makes it harder to not back up how you feel. Do you know what I mean? It make it harder for you to wiggle. It make it harder for you to gaslight. It make it harder for you to co-op your point or your stance once you backed into a corner. Because it's like, no, you said here clearly black and white. And it's not like you're on Twitter where it's like you're anonymous. It's like, no, this is me, Marcus Garvey, saying that I stand with working class black folks and saying that you stand with the upper teens.

This is me saying it's like, yeah. It doesn't mean that your ideas are suddenly more credible. I just feel like today, especially because of social media, there are so many people who say things online that they would never say.

Never say in person. And I just wish more people would stand 10 toes down. Like, even if you're going to have a bad opinion, like actually bring it and say, like, this is how I feel so that you can give somebody else the opportunity to refute your argument rather than what's the phrase? Throw in your rock and hide in your hands, so to speak. Yeah.

Because the boys literally saying and reiterating that black Americans don't have a race problem or don't have a color problem in terms of light skin, dark skin, field nigga, house nigga. It's like you you lying, bro. Like you not only are you lying, you technically throwing a rock and high on your hand because you don't implement all type of brown bag test to get into these organizations that you create.

Oddly enough, even after that roast, Garvey still tries to foster a relationship with Du Bois. But each time he invites Du Bois to an event or to write something for Garvey's group, he gets a polite no. Du Bois ices Garvey out at every turn. And soon enough, he gets his chance to pick Garvey apart when the Black Star Line runs into trouble. The Black Star Line was a shipping line Garvey operated from 1919 to 1922.

with the dream of transporting goods and eventually black Americans to Africa. And now that rumors are flying about the Black Star Line, the boys can't resist kicking Garvey while he's down.

It's August 1922. Du Bois sits in his office making edits on his article for the September issue of The Crisis. With a smug look on his face, he takes out a pencil and leans over the typewritten pages laid out on his desk. He strikes the courtesy title Mr. in front of Garvey's name and instead scribbles the decidedly informal Garvey. Then he corrects some spelling mistakes to

To Du Bois, it reads like a regular investigative article. But in reality, he was being a hater. In extra detail, he explains that one of Garvey's boats was so dirty that most of its 77 passengers refused to get on.

By this time, the tea is lukewarm. Most people already know the gist of what happened, but Du Bois takes delight in laying out every detail. He spends the next few pages going over Garvey's financial mismanagement of the shipping line, including the broken down ships and an investigation by J. Edgar Hoover that would eventually lead to Garvey's indictment for mail fraud. Du Bois underlines that section of the article.

Twice. As he gets to the final page, a smile crosses his face. He pulls out a bottle of thick, clear, strong-smelling glue to attach a clipping from a letter. He glues the clipping to a blank spot on the typewritten pages and blows on it a little bit.

He writes in pencil just above the clipping. To this, let us add this pitiful human document. That pitiful human document is a letter from a widow wondering if she should keep sending her hard-earned payment of $5 a month to buy shares in Garvey's Black Star line. Du Bois is sure that this is the perfect button to his expose. The answer is, no ma'am, keep your money.

Boy, shots fired. He let that proverbial chopper sang and slang, didn't he? To say the least, Du Bois, the king of respectability, is reduced to being petty as hell. His article calls Garvey the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race, suffering from serious defects of temperament and training. Garvey counters by calling Du Bois the Negro misleadings.

Du Bois gets heated enough to forget about the optics. He calls Garvey a little fat black man, ugly, big head. Garvey hits back with his own colorist insults, calling Du Bois a little Dutch, a little French, a little Negro, a mulatto, a monstrosity.

Oh, man. The fact that all of these insults are things that literal racist would employ, it's just so disappointing. Like, zoom out, take a step back. Even though y'all see the world differently for Black folks, you're both working towards the same thing in your own ways. And all this, like, interpersonal squabbling, it's just ultra disappointing. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, that was lost in the sauce. That was lost in the sauce. And they conducted themselves in a manner that I think that they would probably be turned over in their graves right now. Remembering like, hey, this is like the archive caught this now, fellas. You say a little fat, ugly. What? You say a little Dutch, little what? Little mulatto, what? OK. Du Bois definitely thinks he's better than Garvey. And with Garvey tied up in legal problems, Du Bois is free to push the talented 10th idea even further.

recruiting bright young men into his ranks. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Now that I get it. Okay. I get it. I get what you're trying to say now. You know what I'm saying? Du Bois. Now that I haven't thought about it. I still think you're wrong and you're lying, but I get it. I get it. Okay. Wait, what just happened? I want to hear how the wheels were turning over there. What are you seeing differently? Du Bois said that Gauri was bringing Caribbean color politics to the states. Yes.

Is him talking about he's to me is the boy saying that he's more and he's more concerned with the external ways that black people are seen and not the internal ways that we see ourselves. So I know when we start talking about Caribbean color politics, we start talking about, you know, I'm saying like the browns and the reds or whatever they call it. People in the flats, the people in this and how it's like real structure by color in terms of class. Now, America has the same thing. But you got to think about it in the 1920s.

We have that one drop rule that's still real pertinent So when you start trying to I feel like be be critical about like, you know Light-skinned privilege or being critical about colorism I bet you it was a lot of folks in america that was kind of ignorant to it because we so used to being like Hey if the sign said no niggas allowed that didn't mean light-skinned niggas or dark-skinned niggas That mean in any instance if you had any black blood no for you so

Du Bois, in his mind, probably thought that it's more important and efficient to focus on how we all get lumped into blackness. And he felt like it wasn't productive to think about light skin versus dark skin. It makes sense when you say it, but that in practice, he starts putting together, you know, all of the past and present leaders that he thinks would qualify for the talented 10th. And all of them are light skinned.

You know what I mean? It's like, hey, we don't want to talk about that stuff. It's not really important. But then the reality is it's still influencing who you work with, who you uplift, who you see as smarter and more worthy. And so, again, it's that thing of...

progressive in some ways, but not in others. And that's something that we all need to continuously like check ourselves on. Even when you think like I'm doing the right thing and I'm standing up for what's right and I'm all for equality and justice, like doing that little gut check and saying,

where are maybe some of my blind spots where my privilege isn't allowing me to recognize, oh, I'm still not making space for certain types of people that don't look like me or embody different identities. And here we go. We've got two leaders who are doing exactly just that. It's March 1924. At the Civic Club on West 12th Street, Du Bois Works the Room, where more than 100 guests have gathered to celebrate a crop of young Black writers.

The crowd is mixed. A number of white publishers and critics mingle about. Du Bois is building relationships with these young Harlem writers, and he's quickly becoming the arbiter of art in these circles. High on his list is convincing Langston Hughes to project a more positive image of black people, uplift the race. When The Crisis published one of Hughes' poems, Du Bois had received a letter from a reader complaining that his work was vulgar.

The Voice feels somewhat responsible for yous. After all, The Crisis was the first publication to publish The Young Poet just three years ago. Everyone takes their seats and a quick program begins. A few of the stars of the Renaissance read their poems. Countee Cullen is one of them. As soon as The Young Man begins speaking, The Voice sits up in the seat. Countee's poised, intelligent.

Exactly the kind of black intellectual Du Bois is looking for. Would County be open to a little guidance about his work? Is he willing to use his talent to uplift the race? Du Bois is anxious to find out. As County walks away from the podium, the editor of Harper's Magazine approaches him for publishing rights. "Okay, I see you," Du Bois thinks to himself.

He's impressed. And Du Bois does not impress easily. Countee's got talented tint written all over him. But Countee is very different from Langston Hughes. Hughes writes passionately about the Black experience because he knows how much representation matters. And because he's writing for a Black audience, he refuses to adhere to the constraints of white literary styles. Instead, he uses the language of the common man.

Countee, on the other hand, fancied himself a quote "traditional poet." He writes about his individual experiences, mimicking the style of classic white poets. He even name-checks John Keats in one of his poems. He desperately wants the white literati to accept him. He announces to the world, "If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be a poet and not 'Negro poet.'"

While white critics and black political leaders call him the face of the new Negro, others are calling Colin a quote, self-hating Negro who wanted to be white. Despite their differences, Du Bois becomes enamored with both poets. He believes that art should be used to push black people forward. He believes art is propaganda. And Hughes was doing just that.

And while Cullen's works were crafted to appeal to white folks, Du Bois saw that the young poet might be useful. Meanwhile, Cullen's ability to write like white poets proved that Blacks were equal to whites.

I think right here we see that tension being illustrated with just like the white acceptance and like the liberation of black people and like how we come to the idea of equality. Because a lot of times when we see white people as being the master signifier of what is, I think it usually taints how we go strive for that equality. Because in many instances, like, yeah, you just want to be like the white man or you want to be like the white folks. So you can see why W.E.B. is determined to turn county into the model, talented 10th man.

County is the de facto poet laureate of the Harlem Renaissance. And County needs Du Bois as much as Du Bois needs County. One major theme in County Cullen's life is the search for a father figure, a role that Du Bois might be willing to play in more ways than one. But County's got secrets, stuff that could render W.E.B.'s investment in him worthless.

As Du Bois offers the young man his friendship and his mentorship, his mind turns to more elitist thoughts. Maybe there's a way he can give county prestige and forge a dynasty at the same time through his daughter.

If you like Black History for Real, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

This is episode one of our four-part series, The Talented Tenth. We use multiple sources when researching our stories, but the Journal of Southern History, the African American Intellectual History Society, and the W.E.B. Du Bois Center Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst were extremely helpful. A note, we're not going to be talking about the

Our scenes contain reenactments and dramatized details for narrative cohesiveness. Black History for Real is hosted by me, Francesca Ramsey. And me, Conscious Lee. Black History for Real is a production of Wondery and DCP Entertainment. This episode was written by Pia Wilson. Sound design by Greg Schweitzer.

The theme song is by Terrace Martin. Special thanks to Dan Ellis and Tony Price. For DCP Entertainment, associate producers are Quentin Hill, Brittany Temple, and Chris Colbert. The senior producer is Ron Woodall. Executive producers for DCP Entertainment

are Adele Coleman and DJ Treacy Treece. For Wondery, Lindsey Gomez is the development producer. The production coordinator is Desi Blaylock. Sophia Martins is our managing producer. Our producer is Matt Gant. The executive producers for Wondery are Marshall Louie, Erin O'Flaherty, and Candice Mariquez-Wren. Wondery.

Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of Wondery's podcast, Against the Odds. In each episode, we share thrilling true stories of survival, putting you in the shoes of the people who live to tell the tale. In our next season, it's July 6th, 1988, and workers are settling into the night shift aboard Piper Alpha, the world's largest offshore oil rig.

Home to 226 men, the rig is stationed in the stormy North Sea off the coast of Scotland. At around 10 p.m., workers accidentally trigger a gas leak that leads to an explosion and a fire. As they wait to be rescued, the workers soon realize that Piper Alpha has transformed into a death trap. Follow Against the Odds wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app.