Booker T. Washington and the Black Conservative Tradition
Reading Steven Hahn on Booker T. Washington, I kept thinking that the effort to re-evaluate Washington’s career would benefit from the concept of a “black conservative” political tradition that Ta-Nehisi Coates deployed in his profile of Bill Cosby. To the Google I went and wasn’t surprised to see that Coates had written as much already back in March, reviewing the same book Hahn was reviewing.
At any rate, I think it’s an important idea—the kind of thing that seems obviously correct once you understand it but that, to me at least, was totally unfamiliar until I heard it. But the basic point is that within the African-American political tradition, like within the white political tradition, there’s a conservative strain and a liberal strain. The conservative strain is pessimistic about race relations and nationalistic in its orientation, whereas the liberal strain is optimistic, cosmopolitan, and integrationist. But because this controversy within black politics is embedded inside a larger white-dominated political context it often gets confused. Sometimes, as in the conventional reading of Washington, the black conservative appears to white American liberals to be the timid appeaser of white supremacists. And other times, as with a Malcolm X, he looks like a dangerous radical black nationalist.
It’s only extremely recently that the idea of an African-American aligning himself, à la Clarence Thomas, with the mainstream conservative movement in America could be remotely possible. But even so, that didn’t mean there was no ideological conflict in black politics or that general rightist sentiments somehow didn’t exist.
26 Responses to “Booker T. Washington and the Black Conservative Tradition”
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October 27th, 2009 at 8:40 am
Why not compare black conservatives to people who believe in UFOs? With a difference: the percentage of people who believe in UFOs is much higher than the percentage of blacks who believe in conservativism.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Sometimes, as in the conventional reading of Washington, the black conservative appears to white American liberals to be the timid appeaser of white supremacists. And other times, as with a Malcolm X, he looks like a dangerous radical black nationalist.
This simplifies the situation a bit. You really do have two dimensions– conservative vs. liberal and nationalistic vs. accomodationist. Booker T. Washington’s main opponent was WEB DuBois who certainly had a more cosmopolitan outlook than Washington but was seen more as the black radical of his day, while Washington was the non-threatening figure that white people could get behind.
And in any case, Washington was proved wrong– his ideas were based on the premised that southern whites would be willing to respect black lives and property and support their separate institutions equally. He turned out to be completely wrong about that, and to a degree, he was used by whites as a dupe in order to justify the continuation of Jim Crow.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Another Black Conservative Tradition
Harry Turtledove and Richard Dreyfuss portray another black conservative (and white radical) tradition in their charming counterfactual history-detective novel The Two Georges.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Let’s see … from its foundation in the 1850s till the new deal realignment in the 1930s african americans were overwhelmingly supporters of the republican party. But I guess there is no contradiction since at that time it was the democrats, as the party of slavery and segregation, who were the conservatives?
October 27th, 2009 at 9:17 am
I think people are missing Matt’s/Ta-Nehisi’s point, which is that liberal and conservative strains of specifically black political thought have not always aligned with mainstream liberalism and conservatism. Booker T. Washington was a black “conservative” in the sense that he believed in maintaining the system of segregation in order to allow black development (”cast down your bucket where you are”). If Washington had been a mainstream conservative on race relations in the early twentieth century, he more or less would have had to support allowing his own lynching. Only in a post-civil rights era could a black mainstream conservative like Clarence Thomas or Michael Steele emerge.
I know that was basically just a restatement of Matt’s post, but some comments seemed to be misconstruing it.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:41 am
How is this any more surprising than the observation that religious minorities don’t universally share a belief in secularism?
October 27th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Booker T kinda resembles Ryan Howard.
October 27th, 2009 at 10:25 am
[...] reading Hahn’s review, liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias was apparently struck by the need for “the concept of a ‘black conservative’ political tradition” in order to [...]
October 27th, 2009 at 10:29 am
coates argument, especially with regards to cosby, is strikingly similar to argument made by michael eric dyson. they both point out the degree to which cosby used to align himself with a more orthodox strain of civil rights, and then go on to characterize his newest incarnation as some form of curmudgeonly senility. with that example made, they then extrapolate to some larger taxonomy that splits black thought into liberal and conservative; where liberal is everything that is rightous and progressive and conservative is backward-looking crusty old black guys who benefitted from the struggle, got theirs, and subsequently turned their back on it.
it’s a very convenient way to view civil rights issues if you happen to be liberal. it’s also profoundly stupid and self-serving.
October 27th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Um, no way not just to “white liberals”
Ever hear of W.E.B. Dubois?
October 27th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Tyro- exactly! This is such a poor reading of history from Yglesias. I’m actually shocked by this post. WTF is he even talking about?
October 27th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Well, I’m with Tyro – at least as far as Washington goes, he really was trying to appease the white South, in so far as he thought if blacks gave up on civil rights, the whites would let blacks try to advance economically.
However, I think calling Malcom X a conservative misses some key differences – one, focusing on building up separate black institutions misses out that Malcom X included black political power whereas Washington abandoned it; two, Washington’s conception of economic power was squarely within the bounds of self-help, whereas Malcom X (while supporting the idea of black self-ownership) was more economically radical, especially in regards to reparations; third, Washington identified with the nation/region, whereas Malcom X (like Garvey)called for a political separation and home rule on some level.
October 27th, 2009 at 11:36 am
[...] that African-American involvement in the mainstream conservative movement has somewhat deeper roots than I said here. He cites this Saturday Evening Post article from author Zora Neale Hurston, who was apparently a [...]
October 27th, 2009 at 11:40 am
The whole concept of what means to be either liberal or conservative really changed in the 1950s, although changes were occurring before that and after. So I’m not sure what this means, anyway. To be a liberal in the 1930s meant you were a Southern white racist who wanted to ban the teaching of evolution. To be a conservative meant you were a godless Northern capitalist. Oh how times have changed. There’s only one thing that hasn’t: whoever is in power has Wall Street’s back.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
BREAKING: Black folks DO NOT, in fact all think alike!
hahaahah!
I’ve come to have a hearty appreciation for why black folks laugh at us.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
[...] that African-American involvement in the mainstream conservative movement has somewhat deeper roots than I said here. He cites this Saturday Evening Post article from author Zora Neale Hurston, who was apparently a [...]
October 27th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Matt says:
The conservative strain is pessimistic about race relations and nationalistic in its orientation, whereas the liberal strain is optimistic, cosmopolitan, and integrationist.
Right. I made the same point in 1995 in my review in National Review of the Library of America’s two volume Complete Works of Zora Neale Hurston:
http://www.isteve.com/zora.htm
October 27th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Tomemos misinterprets Booker T. Washington’s most famous line:
Booker T. Washington was a black “conservative” in the sense that he believed in maintaining the system of segregation in order to allow black development (”cast down your bucket where you are”).
Washington’s famous “Cast down your bucket where you are speech” to white industrialists in Atlanta in 1895 was, in part, an immigration restrictionist call for factory owners to employ American blacks rather than immigrants from Europe:
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/88/
October 27th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Yglesias’ followers would do well to add black conservative bloggers to their RSS feeds and stop guessing second- and third-hand through the proxy of famous blacks in history and what [your clique here] thinks of them. This ain’t anthropology, it’s due diligence.
You can start with my clique, The Conservative Brotherhood. Google works.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
BTW, here is my favorite conversation starter:
http://cobb.typepad.com/cobb/2006/11/malcolm_x_relig.html
October 27th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Based on Cobb’s about page we see:
and it’s clear we have nothing to discuss. No one who still adheres to such a set of idiotic belief systems is to be taken seriously.
We’re done here.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
You may shut the door behind you Tyro, but I don’t believe it’s yours to lock. You’re done here. Unless you’re not.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Immigration restrictionism has a distinguished list of black supporters, including Barbara Jordan, A. Philip Randolph, Booker T. Washington, and Frederick Douglass.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
We black conservatives are supposed to shut up. Did you forget, Cobb? /s
October 27th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
That was rather amusing. A black conservative turns up to comment on a post about black conservatives and suddenly you want to take your ball and go home? Almost as amusing as the stereotypes about black conservatives.
October 28th, 2009 at 9:04 am
The neoconservative strain of conservatism is a failed an morally decrepit ideology. Cobb is to be taken no more seriously than an avowed Communist. I have little room or interest in moral/intellectual failures such as Cobb flogging the neoconservative horse. You failed in life Cobb.