Talented tenth

This article is about the African-American leadership class and W. E. B. Du Bois essay. For the hip-hop album, see Talented 10th.

The talented tenth is a term that designated a leadership class of African Americans in the early 20th century. Although the term was created by white Northern philanthropists, it is primarily associated with W. E. B. Du Bois, who used it as the title of an influential essay, published in 1903. It appeared in The Negro Problem, a collection of essays written by leading African Americans and assembled by Booker T. Washington.[1]

  1. ^ Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). "The Talented Tenth". In Washington, Booker T. (ed.). The Negro Problem: a series of articles by representative American Negroes of today. New York: James Pott and Company. pp. 31–75.