The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis by Steve Batterson;

Author:Steve Batterson;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York University Press

Carmichael and Hamilton are absolutely correct. But unfortunately they haven’t gone far enough. It is often the case when members of the black elite do remain in the black community, as most black businessmen do, that it is not for the purpose of incorporating their skills and talents into the struggles of the black masses, but to increase their own personal wealth.

A concrete example will serve to illustrate. Hobart Taylor, Sr., is a black millionaire. According to his estimate, he is worth $5 million. Taylor started out in Houston, Texas, with an insurance business and later expanded by purchasing a taxi franchise. He initially established his economic base in the black community; he even admits that he was in an almost totally segregated business. This alone, however, wasn’t the determining factor in his success. He got credit and financing from Houston banks only through the intercession of a white friend. And where does he stand today? As one might expect, his first identification is with capitalism and private profit: “I talk to white businessmen a lot, too. I tell them it’s just not profitable to keep the Negro ignorant. We need know-how folks paying taxes and not ignorant ones on relief.”

Whether Taylor knows it or not, he let out more truth in this statement than he probably intended when he referred to white businessmen reaping greater profits from the economic advancement of black people. The theory is: the more money made, the greater the potential for exploitation. This statement further reinforces the contention that the corporate power structure has an ulterior motive—private profit—in pushing black capitalism. Finally, to show just what Taylor, the black millionaire whose praises Burrell sings, thinks of black unity (at best a minimal program) and militancy: “If all those [white] business houses would advertise prominently that they’re hiring Negroes, it would give all Negroes hope. And it would kill off the Stokely Carmichaels.”16

This underscores an important point: Black capitalism or white capitalism, black millionaire or white millionaire, black corporate head or white corporate head, under American capitalism allegiance is first and last to business and private profit. Any rocking of the boat will be opposed just as quickly by the black elite as it is by the white corporate power structure.

One of the cardinal principles of the latter-day black economic nationalists is insistence on a program of black “self-help.” One of the leading proponents of this line is Dr. Thomas W. Matthew, a neurosurgeon. Dr. Matthew currently heads an organization which, quite appropriately, is titled NEGRO (National Economic Growth and Reconstruction Organization). Matthew, in an interview in U.S. News & World Report (July 22, 1968), stated: “We cannot have real integration until we have integration of equals.” Undoubtedly this is true. But Matthew is of course speaking from the same theoretical posture as Burrell (“millionaire to millionaire”). Matthew continues by equating economic independence with economic power. As a step in achieving black unity and a reshaping of black thought, this would be acceptable. But even here,

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