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PAUL FELDMAN
the broader society and help sustain the many who would have been
forced to accept a life of deprivation and poverty. They were able to
accomplish more for the communities they served only because of the
historical transformation undergone by American society beginning in
the thirties with the emergence of political movements and forms of
social organization that transcended the limitations of ethnic politics.
Progress came mainly through the joint struggle of American
working-class groups of every nationality and color to build the indus–
trial unions and through their coalition within the Northern wing of the
Democratic Party around the demand for a "New Deal." (The demand
for "Irish power," "Jewish power" or "Italian power," etc., would have
splintered their ranks.) It was the role of the minorities in these two
institutions that began their integration into the national economy and
brought the industrial underclass of that day, or their offspring, some
of the good things in life. (The reasons that most Negroes did not
receive a substantial share of the benefits accruing from these struggles
is too complicated to be explored in an essay of this length and cannot
be explained solely by white racism, which, of course, was a major
factor. Consideration must also be given to the fact that the overwhelm–
ing majority of Negroes were still living in the South, laboring in agri–
culture, at the time when the center of trade union organization and
the progressive base of the New Deal was in the North.)
There are those from minority groups that the New Deal coalition
started on the road to a better life who today admonish Negroes to
make it through self-help. To maintain their privileges and prejudices,
they invoke golden myths about their forebears' rise, and tragically
some Negroes believe them. There are also white and black intellectuals
who add to the confusion by telling Negroes that they can go it alone
and succeed through a formula that combines revolutionary rhetoric,
super-militant tactics and self-help programs. That the theories of the
black powerists overlap with those of the ethnic mythologists is more
than a strange coincidence. It is a sign that they have not developed
a revolutionary or even an independent ideology. Their views should
be seen more as a reflection of the present racial crisis than a prescrip–
tion to resolve it in a progressive way.
Charles V. Hamilton
Martin Duberman's article on Black Power is
chara~teristic
of many such reflections by people who probably style themselves as
