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11 books match the query 'African American leadership'
Black Political Organizations in the Post-Civil Rights Era
Edited by Ollie A. Johnson III, Karin L. Stanford
Rutgers University Press, 2002
We know a great deal about civil rights organizations during the 1960s, but relatively little about black political organizations since that decade. Questions of focus, accountability, structure, and relevance have surrounded these groups since the modern Civil Rights Movement ended in 1968. Political scientists Ollie A. Johnson III and Karin L. Stanford have assembled a group of scholars who examine the leadership, membership, structure, goals, ideology, activities, accountability, and impact of contemporary black political organizations and their leaders. Questions considered are: How have these organizations adapted to the changing sociopolitical and economic environment? What ideological shifts, if any, have occurred within each one? What issues are considered important to black political groups and what strategies are used to implement their agendas? The contributors also investigate how these organizations have adapted to changes within the black community and American society as a whole.
Organizations covered include well-known ones such as the NAACP, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Urban League, and the Congress of Racial Equality, as well as organizations such as the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. Religious groups, including black churches and the Nation of Islam, are also considered.
Du Bois and His Rivals
Raymond Wolters
University of Missouri Press, 2002
In Du Bois and His Rivals, Raymond Wolters provides a distinctive biography of this great pioneer of the American civil rights movement. Readers are able to follow the outline of Du Bois’s life, but the book’s main emphasis is on discrete scenes in his life, especially the controversies that pitted Du Bois against his principal black rivals. He challenged Booker T. Washington because he could not abide Washington’s conciliatory approach toward powerful whites. At the same time, Du Bois’s pluralism led him to oppose the leading separatists and integrationists of his day. He berated Marcus Garvey for giving up on America and urging blacks to pursue a separate destiny. He also rejected Walter White’s insistence that integration was the best way to promote the advancement of black people.
Du Bois felt that American blacks should be full-fledged Americans, with all the rights of other American citizens. However, he believed that they should also preserve and develop enough racial distinctiveness to enable them to maintain and foster a sense of racial identity, community, and pride. Du Bois and His Rivals shows that Du Bois stood for much more than protest against racial oppression. He was also committed to pluralism, and his pluralism emphasized the importance of traditional standards and of internal cooperation within the black community. Anyone interested in the civil rights movement, black history, or the history of the United States during the early twentieth century will find this book valuable.
Emancipation's Daughters
Reimagining Black Femininity and the National BodyRiché Richardson
Duke University Press, 2021
From Du Bois to Obama
African American Intellectuals in the Public ForumCharles Pete Banner-Haley
Southern Illinois University Press, 2014
In his groundbreaking new book Charles Pete Banner-Haley explores the history of African American intellectualism and reveals the efforts of black intellectuals in the ongoing struggle against racism, showing how they have responded to Jim Crow segregation, violence against black Americans, and the more subtle racism of the postintegration age. Banner-Haley asserts that African American intellectuals—including academicians, social critics, activists, and writers—serve to generate debate, policy, and change, acting as a moral force to persuade Americans to acknowledge their history of slavery and racism, become more inclusive and accepting of humanity, and take responsibility for social justice.
Other topics addressed in this insightful study include the disconnection over time between black intellectuals and the masses for which they speak; the ways African American intellectuals identify themselves in relation to the larger black community, America as a whole, and the rest of the world; how black intellectuals have gained legitimacy in American society and have accrued moral capital, especially in the area of civil rights; and how that moral capital has been expended. Among the influential figures covered in the book are W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, James Weldon Johnson, E. Franklin Frazier, Ralph Bunche, Oliver C. Cox, George S. Schuyler, Zora Neale Hurston, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesse Jackson, Cornel West, Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Charles Johnson, and Barack Obama.
African American intellectuals, as Banner-Haley makes clear, run the political gamut from liberal to conservative. He discusses the emergence of black conservatism, with its accompanying questions about affirmative action, government intervention on behalf of African Americans, and the notion of a color-blind society. He also looks at how popular music—particularly rap and hip-hop—television, movies, cartoons, and other media have functioned as arenas for investigating questions of identity, exploring whether African American intellectuals can also be authentically black.
A concluding discussion of the so-called browning of America, and the subsequent rise in visibility and influence of black intellectuals culminates with the historic election of President Barack Obama, an African American intellectual who has made significant contributions to American society through his books, articles, and speeches. Banner-Haley ponders what Obama’s election will mean for the future of race relations and black intellectualism in America.
From Edward Brooke to Barack Obama
African American Political Success, 1966-2008Dennis S. Nordin
University of Missouri Press, 2012
In From Edward Brooke to Barack Obama, Dennis S. Nordin navigates the history of biracial elections by examining the experiences of a variety of African American politicians from across the country, revealing how voters, both black and white, respond to the issue of race in an election.
From Edward Brooke to Barack Obama investigates the implications of race in politics, a highly relevant topic in today’s American society. It offers readers a chronological overview of the progress made over the last several decades as well as shows where there is room for growth in the political arena. By taking a pertinent topic for the era and placing it in the context of history, Nordin successfully chronicles the roles of race and race relations in American politics.
Have You Got Good Religion?
Black Women's Faith, Courage, and Moral Leadership in the Civil Rights MovementAnneMarie Mingo
University of Illinois Press, 2024
A depiction of moral imagination that resonates today, Have You Got Good Religion? reveals how Black Churchwomen’s understanding of God became action and transformed a nation.
I Heart Obama
Erin Aubry Kaplan
University Press of New England, 2016
Our Stories
Black Families in Early DallasGeorge Keaton Jr.
University of North Texas Press, 2022
Real Role Models
Successful African Americans Beyond Pop CultureBy Joah Spearman and Louis Harrison, Jr.
University of Texas Press, 2010
All young people need good role models, and black youth especially need positive and real examples beyond the famous and wealthy people they see on SportsCenter highlights and MTV Cribs. While success as a celebrity athlete or entertainer may seem like an achievable dream, the reality is that young African Americans have a much greater chance of succeeding in the professions through education and hard work—and a mentor to show them the path. Real Role Models introduces high school and college-age African Americans to twenty-three black professionals who have achieved a high level of success in their chosen fields and who tell their stories to inspire young people to pursue a professional career and do the work necessary to achieve their dreams.
Some of the individuals profiled by Joah Spearman and Louis Harrison, Jr., include Leonard Pitts, Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist for the Miami Herald; Melody Barnes, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council; Danyel Smith, editor-in-chief of Vibe; and Dr. Tim George, Chief of Pediatric Neuroscience at Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas. They and other interviewees describe their backgrounds, career paths, and desire to give back by helping others reach their goals. Representing a wide range of occupations, these real role models prove to African American youths that a whole world of successful, rewarding careers awaits them.
The Real Role Models
- Rufus Cormier, JD, Partner at the Baker Botts Law Firm, Houston, Texas
- Melody Barnes, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, Washington, D.C.
- Eric Motley, PhD, Managing Director of the Aspen Institute's Henry Crown Fellowship Program, Aspen, Colorado
- James McIntyre, Spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington, D.C.
- Tracie Hall, Assistant Dean and Librarian at Dominican University, River Forest, Illinois
- Kimberlydawn Wisdom, MD, Surgeon General of the State of Michigan, Lansing, Michigan
- Timothy George, MD, Chief of Pediatric Neuroscience at Dell Children's Medical Center, Austin, Texas
- Victoria Holloway Barbosa, MD, Ethnic Dermatologist and Former Executive for L'Oreal, Chicago, Illinois
- Bill Douglas, White House Correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers, Washington, D.C.
- Leonard Pitts, Jr., Columnist for the Miami Herald, Miami, Florida
- Danyel Smith, Editor of Vibe Magazine, New York, New York
- Ed Stewart, Managing Director of External Communications for Delta Airlines, Atlanta, Georgia
- Lynn Tyson, Vice President of Investor Relations for Dell, Austin, Texas
- Willie Miles, Jr., Founder and CEO of Miles Wealth Management, Houston, Texas
- Horace Allen, Founder and CEO of TeamPact, Atlanta, Georgia
- Deavra Daughtry, President and CEO of Excellent Care Management, Houston, Texas
- Je'Caryous Johnson, Founder and CEO of I'm Ready Productions, Houston, Texas
- Steve Jones, Cofounder of a graphic design company, Oakland, California
- Isiah Warner, PhD, Chemistry Professor at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
- Gloria Ladson-Billings, PhD, Professor of Education at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
- Bernard Muir, Athletic Director at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
- Craig Littlepage, Athletic Director at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia
- Beverly Kearney, Women's Track Coach at the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Revolutionaries to Race Leaders
Black Power and the Making of African American PoliticsCedric Johnson
University of Minnesota Press, 2007
The Black Power movement represented a key turning point in American politics. Disenchanted by the hollow progress of federal desegregation during the 1960s, many black citizens and leaders across the United States demanded meaningful self-determination. The popular movement they created was marked by a vigorous artistic renaissance, militant political action, and fierce ideological debate.
Exploring the major political and intellectual currents from the Black Power era to the present, Cedric Johnson reveals how black political life gradually conformed to liberal democratic capitalism and how the movement’s most radical aims—the rejection of white aesthetic standards, redefinition of black identity, solidarity with the Third World, and anticapitalist revolution—were gradually eclipsed by more moderate aspirations. Although Black Power activists transformed the face of American government, Johnson contends that the evolution of the movement as a form of ethnic politics restricted the struggle for social justice to the world of formal politics.
Johnson offers a compelling and theoretically sophisticated critique of the rhetoric and strategies that emerged in this period. Drawing on extensive archival research, he reinterprets the place of key intellectual figures, such as Harold Cruse and Amiri Baraka, and influential organizations, including the African Liberation Support Committee, the National Black Political Assembly, and the National Black Independent Political Party in postsegregation black politics, while at the same time identifying the contradictions of Black Power radicalism itself.
Documenting the historical retreat from radical, democratic struggle, Revolutionaries to Race Leaders ultimately calls for the renewal of popular struggle and class-conscious politics.
Cedric Johnson is assistant professor of political science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
The Perils and Prospects of Southern Black Leadership
Gordon Blaine Hancock, 1884–1970Raymond Gavins
Duke University Press, 1993