Revue Hybrides (RALSH)
e-ISSN 2959-8079 / ISSN-L 2959-8060
Num. spécial 004, mars. 2026
The “Talented Tenth” and the “Common Man”: Connecting Black Elites to the Masses in the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.
Le “Talented Tenth” et le “Common Man”: Connecter les élites noires aux masses dans le mouvement des droits civiques aux États-Unis.
Abstract: Many civil rights leaders developed various strategies to advance the Black struggle for equality. W.E.B. Du Bois and Asa Philip Randolph designed their approaches to fighting for equality and social justice. While Du Bois believed that the best way to equality and social justice was to put the black intelligentsia at the forefront of the struggle, Randolph, on the other hand, considered that the path toward full emancipation required focusing on the black masses. Admittedly, there was then an apparent antagonism between Du Bois’s “Talented Tenth” and Randolph’s “Common Man” due to the nature of their respective approaches. This article wants to show the complementarity and influence of both strategies in the 1950s and 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Drawing on Theda Skocpol and Margaret Somers’s historical comparative approach, which focuses on differences between cases and the uniqueness of each case, this article goes beyond this opposition to examine the strengths and limits of both strategies and to show their complementary implementation in the Black Freedom Movement. The analysis of the dynamics of the Black Freedom Movement in the 1950s and 1960s shows that its success resulted not only from the involvement of some key Black leaders such as Thurgood Marshall, Diane Nash, Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John Lewis to name just a few but also from the mass mobilization such as the March on Washington and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Keywords: Black elites, masses, Talented Tenth, Common Man, civil rights.
Résumé : La lutte des Noirs pour l’égalité aux États-Unis d’Amérique a donné lieu à l’élaboration de nombreuses stratégies. W.E.B. Du Bois et Asa Philip Randolph ont chacun conçu leur propre approche pour lutter en faveur de l’émancipation des Noirs. Si, pour Du Bois, donner la clé de la lutte pour l’égalité à la minorité intellectuelle, ou à l’intelligentsia noire, était la condition sine qua non pour gagner cette bataille, Randolph, lui, considérait qu’il fallait nécessairement confier le destin du peuple noir à la majorité, ou aux masses populaires. Il y avait donc clairement un antagonisme entre ces deux stratégies de lutte, eu égard à leur public cible différent. Cet article vise à mettre en lumière la complémentarité et l’influence de ces deux stratégies au sein du mouvement des droits civiques dans les années 1950 et 1960. En s’appuyant sur l’approche historique comparée de Theda Skocpol et Margaret Somers (1980), qui met l’accent sur les similitudes et les différences, cet article va au-delà de cet antagonisme naturel pour mettre en lumière les forces et les faiblesses de ces deux stratégies, avant d’élucider leur application complémentaire et simultanée dans les années 1950 et 1960. L’analyse de la dynamique du mouvement des droits civiques au cours de ces années montre que son succès a été bâti à la fois sur un vivier important de leaders Noirs comme Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Diane Nash, Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker, John Lewis et bien d’autres mais aussi grâces aux mobilisations populaires comme celles de la Marche sur Washington et le boycott des bus de Montgomery pour ne citer que celles-ci.
Mots-clés : élites noires, masses, Talented Tenth, Common Man, droits civiques.
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