Thread by @drantbradley

Thinking about why white evangelicals/conservatives almost always ignore/avoid the black middle-class: They both seem ignorant of the Washington v. DuBois debate & focus on F. Douglass & MLK.🤷🏾‍♂️ Result: they defacto chose the “Atlanta Compromise” approach. sites.psu.edu/betterthanjord…

The ATL Compromise said blacks would work & submit to white political rule, while whites guaranteed that blacks would receive basic education & due process in law. Blacks would not focus their demands on equality, integration, or justice, & whites would fund charities, churches

The Atlanta Compromise approach conflates being black with being poor and needing white uplift through “urban church planting,” programs focused on “inner-city” blacks, etc. while by-passing building black human flourishing alongside the educated black-middle class (DuBois).

Consequence: white Conservatives/evangelical can’t diversify their leadership ranks because they are not connected to pipelines that largely produce black leaders. Millions of dollars in grants have been wasted by avoiding the black-middle class.

Also, the Atlanta Compromise approach won’t challenge conservatives/evangelicals to diversify their decision-makers and leaders. Why this matters: the black middle-class is the most effective means to help the black underclass if mobilized to so (for lots of cultural reasons).

I could say much more on this but I’m seeing just how sociologically inept many conservative/evangelical leaders are at understanding the black community. There are 1,000s of black middle-class GenZs who are waiting but I can’t get evangelicals/conservatives to recruit them.

Because they know nothing about DuBois v. Washington, Christian colleges & evangelical seminaries, eg., don’t recruit black middle-students & conservatives/libertarians have failed to create sustainable leadership pipelines (after Sowell, McWhorter, etc. there is no one).

The only person in America I know who understands the importance of the black middle-class is William Keyes & this program theinstitute.net.

After 20+ years of spitting in the wind about the black middle-class’s role in black flourishing, I think it’s time some of us found partners who get it & build with this amazing GenZ middle-class cohort who are being ignored (because they don’t produce white messiah stories).