Uplifting the Race

Throughout  The Souls of Black Folk and especially in the ninth essay, "Of the Sons of Master and Man", Du Bois, writes about racial uplift.  Today we largely criticize "racial uplift" as elitism and it was elitism.  But the elitism in racial uplift was both a weakness and a strength.  People like Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary Church Terrell, Booker T. Washington and others felt an obligation to help the masses of African Americans.
Kevin Gaines in his book,  Uplifting the Race, argues:

. . .in its emphasis on class distinctions and patriarchal authority, racial uplift ideology was tied to pejorative notions of racial pathology and thus was limited as a force against white prejudice.

I agree with Gaines that buying into the same racial stereotypes whites had against African Americans hindered the effectiveness of racial uplift, but I feel it was a start.  Racial uplift was better than folding hands and turning up noses and saying I got mine now you get yours the best way can.  Racial uplift built churches, schools, and other self-help organizations. 



Mary Church Terrell
And so, lifting as we climb, onward and upward we go, struggling and striving, and hoping that the buds and blossoms of our desires will burst into glorious fruition ere long. With courage, born of success achieved in the past, with a keen sense of the responsibility which we shall continue to assume, we look forward to a future large with promise and hope. Seeking no favors because of our color, nor patronage because of our needs, we knock at the bar of justice, asking an equal chance.