W.E.B Dubois was correct to conclude that the reestablishment of Black autonomy, power, and unity would come from a select and relatively small number of Africans who commit their lives (time, resources, and talents) to Black Liberation. The fatal flaw in his analysis was to assume that that select group would be made up of the Talented Tenth, the Black Bourgeoisie, Black people who embraced western education and culture, and thus would bring about a Black Industrial Revolution, and a Black version of the the European Renaissance to Africa and the African Diaspora. He also failed to see that they very system he wanted us to adapt and ascent into was an unsustainable and doomed system. (Dubois came to realized this later in life, but it was well after his active years so he was unable to reverse much of the damage he’d done during his earlier years.)
The actual Vanguard of Pan-African Unity, and Black Liberation are not some monolithic group with the same beliefs, level of formal education, income, or social status; the Vanguard only holds two things in common: 1. The desire to see their people free, 2. The wiliness to unite, and organize to secure that freedom. That’s it, everything else will fall into place and people will find their roles within the struggle once they’ve determined that Liberation is their fundamental purpose in life.
We don’t have or need a Talented Tenth to lead us to Liberation, we need to coordinate the efforts of the Pan-Africanist who’ve already made the commitment to our Struggle. We will win if we do this, it matters not if we have 10%, 5%, or 80% of the people; once we begin to make our ideology manifest in our lives and local communities, we will attract all of the minds, hearts, and bodies we need to move forward with the greater agenda.
Don’t wait on the massed, or on the 10%, start now, just us, and let’s build.
The Bloom Cooperative.
