Talented Tenth

The Talented Tenth by W.E.B. Dubois is a prime illustration of the twentieth century’s evolving opinions and problems. Dubois aids in demonstrating the developing propositions that helped inspire new advancement in the area of revitalizing the black race. The Talented Tenth was a speech intended to identify and explain the role of the ‘talented ten percentile’ of the black race in relation to its evolvement. It helps confirm the situation and its dire need for improvement.

Dubois suggests that the black’s way of life could be positively adjusted by constructing a group of blacks composed of the top ten percent of ‘exceptional’ men. These men would be college-educated and would assist in renovating the somber state of the black race. They would aid in leading the blacks to salvation, through illuminating and validating their intellectual capability to whites. Proving this would also include Dubois’s intention to not only educate the blacks, but to enhance their sense of purpose and the character of each individual. Therefore, whites would have been exposed to the blacks competence in life, through Dubois’s ‘talented tenth’. This draft provided an idea that if pursued, an example and goal for black people would be available. The example, the ‘talented tenth’, would positively affect the lives of both whites and black. Therefore, Dubois’s speech was an indispensable document in the twentieth century.

The Talented Tenth was a textbook model of the twentieth century on many levels. It clearly identified the problems, methods and suggestions to evolution to a positive way of life for the black race. What the ‘talented tenth’ consisted of and how it would carry the race to a better way of life were also discussed and analyzed in Dubois’s speech. The Talented Tenth compacts the twentieth century’s problems, solutions, ideas, and opinions into a neat package, making it a key literary draft in the history of the