The Talented Tenth…Revisited

“The Talented Tenth … must be made leaders of thought and missionaries of culture among their people … Education must not simply teach work – it must teach Life.“
-W.E.B. Du Bois (1903)

As I brushed my teeth this morning, I looked in the mirror and read this quote on my shirt. It got me thinking about how this quote has influenced so many people. People tend to ignore the fact that DuBois disavowed this teaching before he died. But let’s ignore that for now; there is still something we can get out of this teaching. However, we must look deeper and extract a meaning from deep within the quote.