According to the economist and Princeton University professor W. Arthur Lewis, the United States is “not a melting pot, but a welding shop” (Lewis 8). America’s multitude of ethnic groups coexist but do not intermix; in his mind, the U.S. is a patchwork of distinct ethnic neighborhoods. The one sector of American life that Lewis does consider characteristically integrated is the economy. Most working people, he asserts, are employed “in the factories and in other basic occupations outside the neighborhood. Some 50 to 60 per cent of the labor force moves out of the neighborhood every morning to work in the country’s basic industries,” which brings them out of their ethnically segregated neighborhoods into a more integrated economic world, at least during the workday.

With these socioeconomic dynamics as his backdrop, Lewis argues in his 1969 article “Black Power and the American University” that, if Black people are to advance in the U.S. system, they must obtain a share of executive and mid-level jobs proportional to their 11-percent share of the population. The key to achieving this, from his perspective, comprises an education at a prestigious university because “Scientists, research workers, engineers, accountants, lawyers, financial administrators, presidential advisers—all these people are recruited… from a very small number of colleges” (10). Lewis’s thinking on Black liberation stands in stark contrast to the revolutionary mentalities of radical thinkers such as Angela Davis and bell hooks. In the most basic sense, Lewis believes Black Americans are most likely to escape disproportionate poverty and oppression by taking advantage of the existing capitalist infrastructure. Hooks and Davis, on the other hand, believe that capitalism is inherently unjust, and that it represents the source of all forms of oppression. Therefore, in their minds, one cannot truly liberate any oppressed group while still operating within the capitalist system.

The kernel of Lewis’s argument is its realism. He writes, “The road to the top in the great American corporations and other institutions is through higher education” (10). Hooks and Davis would argue Black should not take that road. They seek to transform society completely, not to integrate the upper echelons of the existing capitalist hierarchy. This an admirable goal, but Lewis would counter: what is the alternative? No one can credibly deny that our current system has enabled lifetimes of human suffering. However, that system is centuries old and deeply entrenched. How likely is it that someone who does not engage with our governing institutions will be able to reform or replace those institutions in any meaningful way? Would a collective refusal to participate not make oppressed minorities even more marginalized and underprivileged?

Lewis believes that, “To put it in unpopular terms, [the prestigious American university] can train [black students] to become top members of the establishment” (10). Lewis is right; the establishment is unpopular. It is, after all, rooted in a history of injustice. But it represents, in his mind, the most sure-fire path to liberating the oppressed because revolution is too lofty a goal. Furthermore, he believes there is an inherent inspirational value to Black people achieving positions of power within the existing hierarchy, historically occupied by whites. In his mind, it would alter “our young people’s image of themselves and of what they can achieve” (10). In her autobiography, Angela Davis tells of a demonstration outside her cell while she awaited trial: “While the chants of ‘Free Angela’ filled me with excitement, I was concerned that an overabundance of such chants might set me apart from the rest of my sisters. I shouted one by one the names of all the sisters on the floor participating in the demonstration” (Davis 65). Throughout her book, Davis actively avoids recognizing her individual contributions to the Black liberation movement, no doubt due to her anti-individualist mindset. There is an interesting irony to this. By dodging credit for her contributions, Davis inadvertently acknowledges the power that individual people can have to inspire collective revolutionary action — those people were demonstrating for her, not just for the movement. No one can deny that remarkable individuals — Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, Mahatma Gandhi — often serve as figureheads and motivators for mass civic movements.

It is fascinating to examine Lewis’s ideas from within one of the universities he considers so critical to the Black liberation movement. I often think about the fact that the education my fellow students and I will take away from Harvard represents enormous socioeconomic privilege. With this degree, we will have the opportunity to reach personal financial success—or to use that privilege to help those who have not been as fortunate in life. Given the sheer connections and opportunities this institution avails us to fight oppression on an institutional scale, I must wonder: is there not merit to the idea of taking advantage of the current, unjust system in order to reform that system, or even to bring it down from the inside? I do not know the answer, but it is a mighty question to ponder.

References
Lewis, W. Arthur. "Black Power and the American University," 1969.
Davis, Angela. Angela Davis: An Autobiography. International Publishers, 1988.
Watkins, Gloria. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Routledge, 2015.