I found it fascinating while watching Legacy of Courage to listen to Du Bois himself talk about his decision to move from focusing wholly on the study of the black community to a theme of action, of propaganda. Morris illustrates clearly in The Scholar Denied such a transition, whereby Du Bois eventually argues that “one could not be a cool, calm, and detached scientist while Negroes were lynched, murdered, and starved”. It seems, therefore, that aspiring black political advocates were taking Du Bois’s advice with a grain of salt: as we read Hunter’s Black Citymakers, we read about this recurring theme of “secondary marginalization”, in which these advocates made concessions in order to assume positions of political power, while neglecting to a great extent the dire needs of those black families at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum.

The question that arises from this is whether this was the correct approach: were these black leaders right in appeasing the larger white political agenda, in order to gain those first black seats of responsibility? Or would they have been better served pursuing the Du Boisian approach, of pushing for full and comprehensive action for the greater black community? While pondering this, it is worth certainly mentioning that some of these leaders, such as R. R. Wright and Edward J. Henry of the Citizens Republican Club may not have even considered the latter approach, with their adopted stance that the influx of black southern migrants was to blame for the poor living conditions of many in the Seventh Ward. In other words, intraracial tensions contributed significantly to the pursuit of the former approach, and the secondary marginalization that came with it. In essence, this accommodationist approach is something we still see today: in a political environment still dominated by whites, it is perhaps impossible for a person of color to assume an office without giving concession to the white majority. I began by asking whether a Du Boisian approach would have been a better approach, but perhaps I should be asking whether it would have even been a viable approach. I’d be interested to see what others think; for now, with the domination of politics by rich white men even today, I’m pessimistic.