Indirect rule

The white power structure rules the black community through local blacks who are responsive to the white leaders, the downtown, white machine, not to the black populace. These black politicians do not exercise effective power. They cannot be relied upon to make forceful demands in behalf of their black constituents, and they become no more than puppets.

— Indirect rule

Thus, when one talks of a “Negro Establishment” in most places in this country, one is talking of an Establishment resting on a white power base; of handpicked blacks whom that base projects as showpieces out front. These black “leaders” are, then, only as powerful as their white kingmakers will permit them to be.

— Indirect rule