Paradoxes of Black American Leadership

I begin with a straightforward proposition that there have been three types of black political leadership in twentieth century America: (1) pragmatic activist, (2) systemic-radical, and (3) ethno-radical. The first of these refers to what we commonly think of as the mainstream pattern, pioneered by W.E.B. Du Bois from the Niagara Movement and the founding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in the years 1905 to 1910 and onward. Pragmatic activism has produc...