In this article I will attempt
to demonstrate a coherent link between the actions of
Anna Julia Cooper, bell hooks, and Patricia Hill Collins as each intellectual
carries (or carried) on the work of the Talented Tenth. This research
will include a discussion of Cooper's educational work as well as her
speaking career; in both areas she advocated equal education opportunities
for Black women. The central concern of DuBois' theory, his advocacy
for education and the creation of an upper class of Blacks, was thus
promoted by Cooper through these vehicles. I will demonstrate that Collins
and hooks, educators as well as members of a contemporary Talented Tenth,
are carrying on the work of education and enlightenment. Through new
strategic methods these intellectuals attempt to reach a broader audience,
and therefore better represent DuBois' reworking of the theories of
the Talented Tenth that occurred near the end of his life. I will demonstrate
that the education and awareness that the contemporary intellectuals
advocate is more inclusive, and while still elitist in some respects,
seeks to accommodate and reach a wider range of people. I will also
show a linkage between theory and practice and demonstrate the decreasing
gap between the theoretical base of the Talented Tenth and the practice
of those who may be considered elite members. This link between theory
and practice, which has not been achieved but which is recognized as
necessary, is a crucial component to the work of contemporary intellectuals.
Thus these intellectuals may be seen as intersecting and furthering
the work of earlier female intellectuals, while broadening the scope
of the Talented Tenth.
Purpose:
The purpose of this research
is to do a comparison of the female intellectuals during reconstruction
with contemporary female intellectuals. In this way, we will look at
the work of Anna Julia Cooper specifically, and how this work intersects
with the theory of the Talented Tenth. We will then look at contemporary
intellectuals bell hooks and Patricia Hill Collins to locate a similar
intersection with the philosophies mandated through the Talented Tenth.
In each case these women may be seen as carrying on the work of the
Talented Tenth to varying degrees. I will explore these degrees and
explain the method of each intellectual as well as the intended result.
I will demonstrate the inclusiveness and exclusiveness of each woman's
efforts, and will show that a general movement towards a more inclusive
theory exists; ultimately a theory linked with practice.
Explanation:
A major goal of all three intellectuals discussed above is (or was)
to further the status of African Americans through learning. Anna Julia
Cooper was both an educator and an orator. She received her master's
degree in 1884 from Oberlin College and went on to work as a teacher
at Wilberforce College, St. Augustine's College, and the Washington
D.C. Colored High School. In 1893 she was a keynote speaker at the World's
Congress of Women. According to Shirley Logan in We Are Coming, The
Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth-Century Black Women, Cooper's speaking
skills were finely tuned to reach many different audiences, and she
used her rhetoric to appeal to the common sense of her spectators and
to demonstrate the plight of the African Americans (119-126). Although
her rhetoric often distanced her from the group of women she claimed
to represent, and perhaps may be seen as less inclusive, this form of
speaking had as its goal the betterment of all African American women.
Cooper stressed the need for education, and outlined an egalitarian
system that would allow equal opportunity for all women.
A common thread through the
histories of all of these intellectuals is the need to teach. Bell hooks
is engaged continually in the process of education, whether it is in
the classroom, through personal interactions, or as a writer. In the
introduction to Teaching to Transgress, Education as the Practice of
Freedom hooks states, "For black folks teaching-educating-was fundamentally
political because it was rooted in antiracist struggle. Indeed, my all-black
grade schools became the location where I experienced learning as revolution"
(2). This early form of radical thinking set the tone for what would
be a continued exercise in education. Hooks views the school system
in two radically different ways; prior to desegregation education was
enacted as an exercise of freedom, a coming to voice, post-desegregation
this same education became a platform for the re-inscription of dominant
ideology (4). Transgression, for hooks, becomes then a mode of teaching
that resists this dominant discourse and focuses instead on the classroom
as a site of resistance and excitement. Hooks uses the classroom, her
writing, and her cultural criticism as ways to interact with different
class groups in society. She stresses the need to reach a larger group
of people than those admitted to academic institutions and notes the
importance of a theory linked firmly with daily practice. Unlike Cooper,
who was forced to speak of Black women's collective experiences out
of necessity, hooks does not claim to be a sole representative; in contemporary
America divergent African American voices may now be heard.
Patricia Hill Collins advocates
a similar collectivist agenda and emphasizes the need for recognition
and inclusion of those marginalized by race, class, and gender. In Fighting
words, Black Women and the Search for Justice, she states "At this
point, whether African-American women can fashion a singular 'voice'
about the Black woman's position remains less an issue than how Black
women's knowledges collectively construct, affirm, and maintain a dynamic
Black women's self-defined standpoint" (71). Collins' attempt to
incorporate multiple voices mirrors that of hooks, and both women may
be seen as furthering the educational goals of the Talented Tenth theories
while attempting to make these theories accessible and applicable to
a broader range of people.
Conclusion:
One main focus of all of the intellectuals discussed above has been
the education of Black women. For hooks and Collins, coming of age in
the 1950's and 1960's and influenced by racial unrest and the theories
of DuBois, education was imperative. Both writers stress the need for
Blacks to create their own theory-workable theory that will be inclusive
of all classes. Anna Julia Cooper's advocacy of education and her recognition
of the class issues that intersected with the status of Black women
were enlightened discourses for the times. Although her writings may
be perceived as radical by contemporary standards, her speeches were
tailored to particular audiences in an effort to gain empathy, and she
was forced to speak as the voice of all black women. This use of persuasive
discourse and a universalizing strategy was considered necessary to
advance the cause of Black women; for Collins and hooks a contemporary
and oppositional theory has evolved. This theory enables these writers
to engage more openly in activism within the academy, and while the
discourses remain similar, the form of struggle has changed. In Fighting
words, Collins says of Cooper "If 'voice' references the collective
quest for self-definition and self-determination, Black women's searching
for a 'voice' in the United States is certainly not new. Anna Julia
Cooper's 1892 volume of essays, which provided the first book-length
treatment of race, class, and gender in Black women's thought, is entitled
A Voice From the South" (47). In this way one may link the ideas
of these three women as they struggle (and struggled) to fight racism,
classism, and misogyny in a world that does not tolerate difference.
Although these women may all be seen as members of an elite Talented
Tenth, through their continued exercises in education they are truly
the embodiment of the ideals of this theory.
Recommendations:
Although current Black educators stress the need for an inclusive, workable
theory, this need has yet to be realized. Recommendations for the future
would include coalition building and accessible theory. Many educators,
such as hooks and Collins, are working to create this accessible theory,
for it is theory that a movement stands upon. Hooks particularly stresses
the need for coalitions, particularly the need to be inclusive of men
in the feminist movement. Only by demonstrating how these movements
are important to all people will progress ensue. Thus there is a great
necessity for educators, movement leaders, and participants to create
clear, accessible, usable theory that transcends class and race.
Bibliography:
Collins, Patricia Hill. Fighting words, Black Women and the Search For
Justice.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1998.
hooks, bell. Feminist Theory,
From Margin to Center. 2nd Ed. Cambridge: South End P,
2000.
hooks, bell. Teaching to
Transgress, Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York:
Routledge, 1994.
Logan, Shirley Wilson. We
Are Coming, The Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth-
Century Black Women. Southern Illinois: Southern Illinois U P, 1999.
