Word.ws English Dictionary

Talented Tenth

Talented Tenth proper noun: a leadership class of African-Americans in the early 20th century, typified by one in ten black men thought to have educated themselves and become involved in social change.

Proper noun

the Talented Tenth

  1. (historical) A leadership class of African-Americans in the early 20th century, typified by one in ten black men thought to have educated themselves and become involved in social change.

Origin of Talented Tenth

The term was coined by White Northern philanthropists, then publicized by W. E. B. Du Bois in an influential essay of the same name, which he published in September 1903.

Questions about Talented Tenth

What does Talented Tenth mean?
Talented Tenth means a leadership class of African-Americans in the early 20th century, typified by one in ten black men thought to have educated themselves and become involved in social change.
What part of speech is Talented Tenth?
Talented Tenth is a proper noun.

Words near Talented Tenth in the dictionary

  1. talent stacks
  2. talent-spotter
  3. talent-spotters
  4. talent-spotting
  5. talented
  6. Talented Tenth
  7. talentedly
  8. talentedness
  9. talentful
  10. talentless
  11. talentlessly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Talented Tenth (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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