Black elites’ fortunes were bound to the masses through shared Jim Crow constraints

Evidence

The Talented Tenth depended upon its own people for allegiance and financial support—in short, for legitimation as a leadership class. Linked inextricably to the masses by both the negative consequences of Jim Crow and positive feelings of racial pride, male and female leaders understood their individual status and well-being in American society to rest ultimately with the status and well-being of the larger black population. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 285

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to scholarship on why educated elites in subordinated groups often pursue collective rather than individual advancement. — connects to: Black elite status depended on the welfare of the whole black population; Black elites’ economic gains have coincided with worsening conditions for the black majority — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 338; Lynching functioned as a wealth ceiling on black economic success — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations: How Building a…, 306 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Black elite status depended on the welfare of the whole black population #expands (0.85)
• Racial violence and discriminatory law stripped wealth from self-sufficient blacks #exemplifies (0.82) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 47
• Black elites’ economic gains have coincided with worsening conditions for the black majority #contradicts (0.80) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 338
• State complicity enabled rivals to seize black wealth after lynchings #exemplifies (0.80) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 303
• Lynching functioned as a wealth ceiling on black economic success #exemplifies (0.78) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 306
• Black middle-class gains coincided with rising mass incarceration and black poverty #contradicts (0.78)
• Jim Crow era labor discrimination forced black workers into unbenefited sectors #expands (0.75) — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 9
• Educated blacks were tasked with restraining the masses from rebellion #qualifies (0.72) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 152
• Educated black elites were trained as a mediating restraint against mass violence #qualifies (0.72) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 154