Michael Hanchard
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195176247
- eISBN:
- 9780199851003
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195176247.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This chapter explores another dimension of the culture/politics conundrum: the 1990s debates about black public intellectuals in the United States. It places the mid-1990s debates about black public ...
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This chapter explores another dimension of the culture/politics conundrum: the 1990s debates about black public intellectuals in the United States. It places the mid-1990s debates about black public intellectuals within a hemispheric perspective, expanding the contours of its polemics beyond the borders of the United States to illustrate the American part of the discussion of what it means to be a public intellectual, black or otherwise.Less
This chapter explores another dimension of the culture/politics conundrum: the 1990s debates about black public intellectuals in the United States. It places the mid-1990s debates about black public intellectuals within a hemispheric perspective, expanding the contours of its polemics beyond the borders of the United States to illustrate the American part of the discussion of what it means to be a public intellectual, black or otherwise.
Curtis J. Evans
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195328189
- eISBN:
- 9780199870028
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195328189.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
W. E. B. Bu Bois and other black leaders played a crucial role in the creation of the “Negro Church.” By using the language and tools of the social sciences, black intellectuals and leaders hoped to ...
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W. E. B. Bu Bois and other black leaders played a crucial role in the creation of the “Negro Church.” By using the language and tools of the social sciences, black intellectuals and leaders hoped to incite and urge the black churches to use their resources to assist and uplift a people downtrodden by racism and economic oppression. Instrumentalists, those who wanted to use the church as a means or instrument for other ends (besides religion), came to dominate interpretations of black religion among African American leaders. Although Du Bois initially hoped to provide detailed local studies of black churches, his long‐term legacy (and that of other black leaders) was to foster longstanding debates about whether the “Black Church” supported or undermined a racist status quo.Less
W. E. B. Bu Bois and other black leaders played a crucial role in the creation of the “Negro Church.” By using the language and tools of the social sciences, black intellectuals and leaders hoped to incite and urge the black churches to use their resources to assist and uplift a people downtrodden by racism and economic oppression. Instrumentalists, those who wanted to use the church as a means or instrument for other ends (besides religion), came to dominate interpretations of black religion among African American leaders. Although Du Bois initially hoped to provide detailed local studies of black churches, his long‐term legacy (and that of other black leaders) was to foster longstanding debates about whether the “Black Church” supported or undermined a racist status quo.
Brittney C. Cooper
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252040993
- eISBN:
- 9780252099540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040993.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
What does it mean and what has it meant to be a Black female intellectual? What does it mean to be a race woman? When and where are the sites of race women’s becoming? Brittney Cooper argues that to ...
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What does it mean and what has it meant to be a Black female intellectual? What does it mean to be a race woman? When and where are the sites of race women’s becoming? Brittney Cooper argues that to arrive at an answer to the first question, we must diligently interrogate and examine the latter questions. Race women were the first Black women intellectuals. As they entered into public racial leadership roles beyond the church in the decades after Reconstruction, they explicitly fashioned for themselves a public duty to serve their people through diligent and careful intellectual work and attention to “proving the intellectual character” of the race. Pauline Hopkins declared two key tasks attached to the work of the “true race-woman.” They were “to study” and “to discuss” “all phases of the race question.” Not only were these women institution builders and activists; they declared themselves public thinkers on race questions. Though Hopkins and her colleagues were part of a critical mass of public Black women thinkers in the 1890s, they joined a longer list of Black women who had been at the forefront of debates over “the woman question” and the role of Black women in public life throughout the 1800s.Less
What does it mean and what has it meant to be a Black female intellectual? What does it mean to be a race woman? When and where are the sites of race women’s becoming? Brittney Cooper argues that to arrive at an answer to the first question, we must diligently interrogate and examine the latter questions. Race women were the first Black women intellectuals. As they entered into public racial leadership roles beyond the church in the decades after Reconstruction, they explicitly fashioned for themselves a public duty to serve their people through diligent and careful intellectual work and attention to “proving the intellectual character” of the race. Pauline Hopkins declared two key tasks attached to the work of the “true race-woman.” They were “to study” and “to discuss” “all phases of the race question.” Not only were these women institution builders and activists; they declared themselves public thinkers on race questions. Though Hopkins and her colleagues were part of a critical mass of public Black women thinkers in the 1890s, they joined a longer list of Black women who had been at the forefront of debates over “the woman question” and the role of Black women in public life throughout the 1800s.
Derrick E. White
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037356
- eISBN:
- 9780813041605
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037356.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book examines how the Institute of the Black World (IBW), led by historian, theologian, and political activist Vincent Harding, mobilized Black intellectuals in identifying strategy to continue ...
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This book examines how the Institute of the Black World (IBW), led by historian, theologian, and political activist Vincent Harding, mobilized Black intellectuals in identifying strategy to continue the Black Freedom Struggle in the 1970s. Harding and colleagues founded the IBW in Atlanta, Georgia in 1969. Under Harding's leadership, it became an activist think tank that evaluated Black Studies for emerging programs, developed a Black political agenda for the 1970s with Black elected officials and grassroots activists, and mediated ideological conflicts among Black activists. Relying on the input from an array of activist-intellectuals, the IBW eschewed ideological rigidity, whether in the form of liberalism, Marxism, or Black Nationalism, for a synthetic and pragmatic analytic framework forged through debate and designed to generate the largest amount of political and activist support. It used its network of intellectuals and activists to emphasize structural racism and a racialized political economy, each of which was designed to foster broad consensus in the Black activist community on difficult issues in the 1970s.Less
This book examines how the Institute of the Black World (IBW), led by historian, theologian, and political activist Vincent Harding, mobilized Black intellectuals in identifying strategy to continue the Black Freedom Struggle in the 1970s. Harding and colleagues founded the IBW in Atlanta, Georgia in 1969. Under Harding's leadership, it became an activist think tank that evaluated Black Studies for emerging programs, developed a Black political agenda for the 1970s with Black elected officials and grassroots activists, and mediated ideological conflicts among Black activists. Relying on the input from an array of activist-intellectuals, the IBW eschewed ideological rigidity, whether in the form of liberalism, Marxism, or Black Nationalism, for a synthetic and pragmatic analytic framework forged through debate and designed to generate the largest amount of political and activist support. It used its network of intellectuals and activists to emphasize structural racism and a racialized political economy, each of which was designed to foster broad consensus in the Black activist community on difficult issues in the 1970s.
Tunde Adeleke
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496813657
- eISBN:
- 9781496813695
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496813657.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter offers an intellectual history of a concept that has divided African American intellectuals as much as it has brought them together: Afrocentrism. It is a way of narrating the past that ...
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This chapter offers an intellectual history of a concept that has divided African American intellectuals as much as it has brought them together: Afrocentrism. It is a way of narrating the past that is at once an example of myth-making and historical narration, while also a source of racial identification for some. Long before the appearance of a professional class of black intellectuals, the challenges of historical racism compelled some blacks to seek historical knowledge. The chapter comments on the divisive and often critical reception that Afrocentrist scholars have experienced, especially in regards to the bifurcation in the field between advocacy and scholarship. Moreover, it illuminates fundamental flaws in Afrocentric historiography in relation to engaging the conflict over heritage, culture, and history.Less
This chapter offers an intellectual history of a concept that has divided African American intellectuals as much as it has brought them together: Afrocentrism. It is a way of narrating the past that is at once an example of myth-making and historical narration, while also a source of racial identification for some. Long before the appearance of a professional class of black intellectuals, the challenges of historical racism compelled some blacks to seek historical knowledge. The chapter comments on the divisive and often critical reception that Afrocentrist scholars have experienced, especially in regards to the bifurcation in the field between advocacy and scholarship. Moreover, it illuminates fundamental flaws in Afrocentric historiography in relation to engaging the conflict over heritage, culture, and history.
Rob Waters
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520293847
- eISBN:
- 9780520967205
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520293847.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Urban unrest over-determined the ways in which black British life, and particularly the life of black young men, was thought about in the late 1970s and the 1980s. This chapter provides an account of ...
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Urban unrest over-determined the ways in which black British life, and particularly the life of black young men, was thought about in the late 1970s and the 1980s. This chapter provides an account of policing conflicts in this period and analyses how they were narrated by those black radical intellectuals who used such conflicts to talk about conditions of blackness and politics of race in Britain in the lead-up to and early years of Thatcherism. Such writers emphasized black youth culture as a repository of a long and continuing struggle against the historical experiences of colonialism and slavery, and they suggested that by looking to the experiences of black youth, the contradictions and antagonisms of Britain’s whole political structure might come into better focus.Less
Urban unrest over-determined the ways in which black British life, and particularly the life of black young men, was thought about in the late 1970s and the 1980s. This chapter provides an account of policing conflicts in this period and analyses how they were narrated by those black radical intellectuals who used such conflicts to talk about conditions of blackness and politics of race in Britain in the lead-up to and early years of Thatcherism. Such writers emphasized black youth culture as a repository of a long and continuing struggle against the historical experiences of colonialism and slavery, and they suggested that by looking to the experiences of black youth, the contradictions and antagonisms of Britain’s whole political structure might come into better focus.
Brian D. Behnken, Gregory D. Smithers, and Simon Wendt (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496813657
- eISBN:
- 9781496813695
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496813657.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Black intellectualism has been misunderstood by the American public and by scholars for generations. Historically maligned by their peers and by the lay public as inauthentic or illegitimate, black ...
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Black intellectualism has been misunderstood by the American public and by scholars for generations. Historically maligned by their peers and by the lay public as inauthentic or illegitimate, black intellectuals have found their work misused, ignored, or discarded. Black intellectuals have also been reductively placed into one or two main categories: they are usually deemed liberal or, less frequently, as conservative. This book explores several prominent intellectuals, from left-leaning leaders such as W. E. B. Du Bois to conservative intellectuals like Thomas Sowell, from well-known black feminists such as Patricia Hill Collins to Marxists like Claudia Jones, to underscore the variety of black intellectual thought in the United States. Chapters situate the development of the lines of black intellectual thought within the broader history from which these trends emerged. The result gathers chapters that offer entry into a host of rich intellectual traditions.Less
Black intellectualism has been misunderstood by the American public and by scholars for generations. Historically maligned by their peers and by the lay public as inauthentic or illegitimate, black intellectuals have found their work misused, ignored, or discarded. Black intellectuals have also been reductively placed into one or two main categories: they are usually deemed liberal or, less frequently, as conservative. This book explores several prominent intellectuals, from left-leaning leaders such as W. E. B. Du Bois to conservative intellectuals like Thomas Sowell, from well-known black feminists such as Patricia Hill Collins to Marxists like Claudia Jones, to underscore the variety of black intellectual thought in the United States. Chapters situate the development of the lines of black intellectual thought within the broader history from which these trends emerged. The result gathers chapters that offer entry into a host of rich intellectual traditions.
Demetrius L. Eudell
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781781381724
- eISBN:
- 9781781382257
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781381724.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter departs from a new object of knowledge identified in 1928 by W. E. B. Du Bois in response to a question posed by a young Black high school student. The student asked why the National ...
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This chapter departs from a new object of knowledge identified in 1928 by W. E. B. Du Bois in response to a question posed by a young Black high school student. The student asked why the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) would ostensibly reinforce a sense of racial separation/inferiority through the organization's choosing to ‘designate, and segregate us as “Negroes,” and not as “Americans”’. In his response to the student, Du Bois pointed out that, ‘It is not the name — it's the Thing that counts’. That is to say, what counts is the fictively-constructed and epistemically-elaborated system of meanings imposed on the population that in turn evokes the ‘feeling of inferiority’, regardless of what particular names Black Americans choose to call themselves. The chapter traces the way in which Black intellectual tradition has been compelled to confront and/or transform this ‘Thing of being Black:’, as an indispensable part of coming to terms with and theorizing anew the ‘Thing of being Human’.Less
This chapter departs from a new object of knowledge identified in 1928 by W. E. B. Du Bois in response to a question posed by a young Black high school student. The student asked why the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) would ostensibly reinforce a sense of racial separation/inferiority through the organization's choosing to ‘designate, and segregate us as “Negroes,” and not as “Americans”’. In his response to the student, Du Bois pointed out that, ‘It is not the name — it's the Thing that counts’. That is to say, what counts is the fictively-constructed and epistemically-elaborated system of meanings imposed on the population that in turn evokes the ‘feeling of inferiority’, regardless of what particular names Black Americans choose to call themselves. The chapter traces the way in which Black intellectual tradition has been compelled to confront and/or transform this ‘Thing of being Black:’, as an indispensable part of coming to terms with and theorizing anew the ‘Thing of being Human’.
Brittney C. Cooper
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252040993
- eISBN:
- 9780252099540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040993.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
Pauli Murray was one of the young activists that Mary Church Terrell mentored. In the 1940s, Murray enrolled at Howard University Law School and went on to graduate as the only woman and top student ...
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Pauli Murray was one of the young activists that Mary Church Terrell mentored. In the 1940s, Murray enrolled at Howard University Law School and went on to graduate as the only woman and top student in her class. In the 1930s, the convergence of several important Black male intellectuals at Howard University, including Abram Harris, E. Franklin Frazier, and Ralph Bunche, had cemented a new formal model of the academically trained Black male public intellectual. When Murray enrolled in the 1940s, she experienced great sexism from these Black male intellectuals. She termed their treatment of her, “Jane Crow.” While she went on to have a storied career as a legal expert, Episcopal priest, poet, and writer, all of which place her firmly in the tradition of the race woman, her identity as both a woman and queer person in the 1940s and 1950s collided with the Howard model of public intellectual work. This chapter brings together Murray’s time and training at Howard, her archives, and an examination of her two autobiographies to suggest that her concept of Jane Crow grew out of the collision of race-based sexual politics and limited ideas among Black men about who could provide intellectual leadership for Black people. Moreover, Jane Crow exposed the heterosexist proclivities of Black public leadership traditions, and offers a framework for thinking about how Black women negotiated gender and sexual politics even as they devoted their lives to theorizing new strategies for racial uplift.Less
Pauli Murray was one of the young activists that Mary Church Terrell mentored. In the 1940s, Murray enrolled at Howard University Law School and went on to graduate as the only woman and top student in her class. In the 1930s, the convergence of several important Black male intellectuals at Howard University, including Abram Harris, E. Franklin Frazier, and Ralph Bunche, had cemented a new formal model of the academically trained Black male public intellectual. When Murray enrolled in the 1940s, she experienced great sexism from these Black male intellectuals. She termed their treatment of her, “Jane Crow.” While she went on to have a storied career as a legal expert, Episcopal priest, poet, and writer, all of which place her firmly in the tradition of the race woman, her identity as both a woman and queer person in the 1940s and 1950s collided with the Howard model of public intellectual work. This chapter brings together Murray’s time and training at Howard, her archives, and an examination of her two autobiographies to suggest that her concept of Jane Crow grew out of the collision of race-based sexual politics and limited ideas among Black men about who could provide intellectual leadership for Black people. Moreover, Jane Crow exposed the heterosexist proclivities of Black public leadership traditions, and offers a framework for thinking about how Black women negotiated gender and sexual politics even as they devoted their lives to theorizing new strategies for racial uplift.
Kendahl Radcliffe, Jennifer Scott, and Anja Werner (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781628461558
- eISBN:
- 9781626740839
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628461558.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Anywhere But Here: Black Intellectuals, The Atlantic World and Beyond brings together new scholarship on the cross-cultural experiences of intellectuals of African descent since the 18th century. The ...
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Anywhere But Here: Black Intellectuals, The Atlantic World and Beyond brings together new scholarship on the cross-cultural experiences of intellectuals of African descent since the 18th century. The intent of this book is not to dismantle Paul Gilroy’s thesis but to embrace it and venture “beyond” the traditional organization and symbolism of the “Black Atlantic.” This collection of essays is not organized geographically or historically by era; instead, contributions are arranged into three sections which highlight the motivations and characteristics that connect a certain set of “agents,” thinkers, and intellectuals: 1) Re-ordering Worldviews: Rebellious Thinkers, Poets, Writers, and Political Architects; 2) Crafting Connections: Strategic and Ideological Alliances; 3) Cultural Mastery in Foreign Spaces: Evolving Visions of Home and Identity. These essays are intentionally organized to expand categories and to suggest patterns at play that have united individuals and communities across the African Diaspora. They highlight the self-determined stories of individuals, who from their intercultural, and often marginalized, positioning, challenged the status quo, created strategic (and at times, unexpected) international alliances, cultivated expertise and cultural competency abroad in places that were unfamiliar to them, as well as, crafted physical and intellectual spaces for their self-expression and dignity to thrive. What, for example, connects the 18th century Igbo author, Olaudah Equiano with 1940s literary figure, Richard Wright; 19th century expatriate anthropologist, Antenor Fermin with 1960s Haitian émigrés to the Congo; Japanese Pan-Asianists and Southern Hemisphere Aboriginal activists with Jamaican-born, Marcus Garvey; or Angela Davis with artists of the British Black Arts Movement Ingrid Pollard and Zarina Bhimji? They are all part of a mapping that reaches across and beyond geographical, historical, and ideological boundaries typically associated with the “Black Atlantic.” They reflect accounts of individuals and communities that are equally united in their will to seek out better realities, often, as the title suggests, “anywhere but here.”Less
Anywhere But Here: Black Intellectuals, The Atlantic World and Beyond brings together new scholarship on the cross-cultural experiences of intellectuals of African descent since the 18th century. The intent of this book is not to dismantle Paul Gilroy’s thesis but to embrace it and venture “beyond” the traditional organization and symbolism of the “Black Atlantic.” This collection of essays is not organized geographically or historically by era; instead, contributions are arranged into three sections which highlight the motivations and characteristics that connect a certain set of “agents,” thinkers, and intellectuals: 1) Re-ordering Worldviews: Rebellious Thinkers, Poets, Writers, and Political Architects; 2) Crafting Connections: Strategic and Ideological Alliances; 3) Cultural Mastery in Foreign Spaces: Evolving Visions of Home and Identity. These essays are intentionally organized to expand categories and to suggest patterns at play that have united individuals and communities across the African Diaspora. They highlight the self-determined stories of individuals, who from their intercultural, and often marginalized, positioning, challenged the status quo, created strategic (and at times, unexpected) international alliances, cultivated expertise and cultural competency abroad in places that were unfamiliar to them, as well as, crafted physical and intellectual spaces for their self-expression and dignity to thrive. What, for example, connects the 18th century Igbo author, Olaudah Equiano with 1940s literary figure, Richard Wright; 19th century expatriate anthropologist, Antenor Fermin with 1960s Haitian émigrés to the Congo; Japanese Pan-Asianists and Southern Hemisphere Aboriginal activists with Jamaican-born, Marcus Garvey; or Angela Davis with artists of the British Black Arts Movement Ingrid Pollard and Zarina Bhimji? They are all part of a mapping that reaches across and beyond geographical, historical, and ideological boundaries typically associated with the “Black Atlantic.” They reflect accounts of individuals and communities that are equally united in their will to seek out better realities, often, as the title suggests, “anywhere but here.”
Jeffrey B. Ferguson
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300109016
- eISBN:
- 9780300133462
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300109016.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book presents different aspects of George Samuel Schuyler's unique approach to the race question. It presents Schuyler as a centrally important twentieth-century black intellectual and as an ...
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This book presents different aspects of George Samuel Schuyler's unique approach to the race question. It presents Schuyler as a centrally important twentieth-century black intellectual and as an essentially liberating figure for his unique application of satire to the race question. The book does not shy away from pointing out the satirist's most flamboyant moments of nearsightedness, farsightedness, and outright blindness. Its central concern remains the complex intellectual and political commitments that make Schuyler irreducible to such one-word descriptions as socialist, conservative, amalgamationist, integrationist, or antiessentialist. In his effort to fashion and project a unique black American identity, he took pleasure in playfully pitting such typical categories against one another. At different points in his career, Schuyler embraced almost all of them, especially the ones he found useful in disputing what he regarded as the narrow, racially motivated standard of his average reader. His ironic, open approach to the race question in many ways anticipates this new historical circumstance, where the invention of multiple racial identities has begun to supersede accounts of group distinctiveness based on narrow assumptions of biological essence or static notions of tradition. Schuyler struck an early blow for audacious independence on racial issues.Less
This book presents different aspects of George Samuel Schuyler's unique approach to the race question. It presents Schuyler as a centrally important twentieth-century black intellectual and as an essentially liberating figure for his unique application of satire to the race question. The book does not shy away from pointing out the satirist's most flamboyant moments of nearsightedness, farsightedness, and outright blindness. Its central concern remains the complex intellectual and political commitments that make Schuyler irreducible to such one-word descriptions as socialist, conservative, amalgamationist, integrationist, or antiessentialist. In his effort to fashion and project a unique black American identity, he took pleasure in playfully pitting such typical categories against one another. At different points in his career, Schuyler embraced almost all of them, especially the ones he found useful in disputing what he regarded as the narrow, racially motivated standard of his average reader. His ironic, open approach to the race question in many ways anticipates this new historical circumstance, where the invention of multiple racial identities has begun to supersede accounts of group distinctiveness based on narrow assumptions of biological essence or static notions of tradition. Schuyler struck an early blow for audacious independence on racial issues.
Paulina L. Alberto
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807834374
- eISBN:
- 9781469603186
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807877715_alberto
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This history of black thought and racial activism in twentieth-century Brazil demonstrates that black intellectuals, and not just elite white Brazilians, shaped discourses about race relations and ...
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This history of black thought and racial activism in twentieth-century Brazil demonstrates that black intellectuals, and not just elite white Brazilians, shaped discourses about race relations and the cultural and political terms of inclusion in their modern nation. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including the prolific black press of the era, and focusing on the influential urban centers of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador da Bahia, the book traces the shifting terms that black thinkers used to negotiate their citizenship over the course of the century, offering fresh insight into the relationship between ideas of race and nation in modern Brazil. It finds that black intellectuals' ways of engaging with official racial discourses changed as broader historical trends made the possibilities for true inclusion appear to flow and then recede. These distinct political strategies, the book argues, were nonetheless part of black thinkers' ongoing attempts to make dominant ideologies of racial harmony meaningful in light of evolving local, national, and international politics and discourse. The book tells a history of the role of people of color in shaping and contesting the racialized contours of citizenship in twentieth-century Brazil.Less
This history of black thought and racial activism in twentieth-century Brazil demonstrates that black intellectuals, and not just elite white Brazilians, shaped discourses about race relations and the cultural and political terms of inclusion in their modern nation. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including the prolific black press of the era, and focusing on the influential urban centers of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador da Bahia, the book traces the shifting terms that black thinkers used to negotiate their citizenship over the course of the century, offering fresh insight into the relationship between ideas of race and nation in modern Brazil. It finds that black intellectuals' ways of engaging with official racial discourses changed as broader historical trends made the possibilities for true inclusion appear to flow and then recede. These distinct political strategies, the book argues, were nonetheless part of black thinkers' ongoing attempts to make dominant ideologies of racial harmony meaningful in light of evolving local, national, and international politics and discourse. The book tells a history of the role of people of color in shaping and contesting the racialized contours of citizenship in twentieth-century Brazil.
Sarah Caroline Thuesen
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807839300
- eISBN:
- 9781469612744
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9780807839300.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
In the battle of equality education, African Americans first had to challenge the assumptions made by whites about black intellectual inferiority. This chapter focuses on the achievements that black ...
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In the battle of equality education, African Americans first had to challenge the assumptions made by whites about black intellectual inferiority. This chapter focuses on the achievements that black community leaders made in the school equality battle. It also highlights two important curricular reform movements that uncovered the barriers to curricular equalization in the Jim Crow South. The chapter further explores why state school leaders were willing to make educational equality concessions and why this victory, in the state's early black public high school development context, was initially more figurative than absolute. The chapter then discusses the arguments made by the black educators and historic movements during the 1920s in the context of cultural citizenship. The chapter concludes with a detailed discussion of Negro jobs, vocational training, and struggles for economic citizenship.Less
In the battle of equality education, African Americans first had to challenge the assumptions made by whites about black intellectual inferiority. This chapter focuses on the achievements that black community leaders made in the school equality battle. It also highlights two important curricular reform movements that uncovered the barriers to curricular equalization in the Jim Crow South. The chapter further explores why state school leaders were willing to make educational equality concessions and why this victory, in the state's early black public high school development context, was initially more figurative than absolute. The chapter then discusses the arguments made by the black educators and historic movements during the 1920s in the context of cultural citizenship. The chapter concludes with a detailed discussion of Negro jobs, vocational training, and struggles for economic citizenship.
Yuichiro Onishi
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814762646
- eISBN:
- 9780814762653
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814762646.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter examines how black intellectual-activists with varying and competing political orientations constructed the iconography of Japan's race-conscious defiance against the global white polity ...
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This chapter examines how black intellectual-activists with varying and competing political orientations constructed the iconography of Japan's race-conscious defiance against the global white polity in their poems and prose. It shows how such a work of political imagination, termed pro-Japan provocation, nurtured the distinct ethos of black self-determination in opposition to the Wilsonian project of liberal internationalism. It first considers William Monroe Trotter's “Fifteenth Point”—the abolition of race-based policies in all nations—before turning to New Negro radicalism that recognized the efficacy of pro-Japan provocation. It then discusses the appearance of Japan's racial-equality clause, along with New Negro intellectuals' race consciousness and the issue of white supremacy, at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. It also looks at the opposition of New Negro intellectuals and writers to the terms of disarmament agreed upon at the Washington Conference of 1921–1922.Less
This chapter examines how black intellectual-activists with varying and competing political orientations constructed the iconography of Japan's race-conscious defiance against the global white polity in their poems and prose. It shows how such a work of political imagination, termed pro-Japan provocation, nurtured the distinct ethos of black self-determination in opposition to the Wilsonian project of liberal internationalism. It first considers William Monroe Trotter's “Fifteenth Point”—the abolition of race-based policies in all nations—before turning to New Negro radicalism that recognized the efficacy of pro-Japan provocation. It then discusses the appearance of Japan's racial-equality clause, along with New Negro intellectuals' race consciousness and the issue of white supremacy, at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. It also looks at the opposition of New Negro intellectuals and writers to the terms of disarmament agreed upon at the Washington Conference of 1921–1922.
Paulina L. Alberto
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807834374
- eISBN:
- 9781469603186
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807877715_alberto.5
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This book asks what people of color thought about both the racial inequalities and the discourses of racial harmony so central to Brazilian public life in the twentieth century. It does so by ...
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This book asks what people of color thought about both the racial inequalities and the discourses of racial harmony so central to Brazilian public life in the twentieth century. It does so by considering the words and actions of black intellectuals—a group of men and a few women of some education and public standing, who proudly claimed their African racial or cultural heritage and who aspired to represent other Brazilians of color in national discussions about race and national identity since the early 1900s. It traces the emergence of their writings and organizations in the rich political and cultural life that evolved, with local variations, among people of color in the cities of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador da Bahia. In recovering their work, the book that follows provides an intellectual and cultural history of the idea of racial harmony in twentieth-century Brazil, told through the life stories and the ideological and political struggles of a small but influential group of black men and women.Less
This book asks what people of color thought about both the racial inequalities and the discourses of racial harmony so central to Brazilian public life in the twentieth century. It does so by considering the words and actions of black intellectuals—a group of men and a few women of some education and public standing, who proudly claimed their African racial or cultural heritage and who aspired to represent other Brazilians of color in national discussions about race and national identity since the early 1900s. It traces the emergence of their writings and organizations in the rich political and cultural life that evolved, with local variations, among people of color in the cities of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador da Bahia. In recovering their work, the book that follows provides an intellectual and cultural history of the idea of racial harmony in twentieth-century Brazil, told through the life stories and the ideological and political struggles of a small but influential group of black men and women.
Shirley Moody-Turner
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617038853
- eISBN:
- 9781621039785
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617038853.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Folk Literature
Chapter three argues that the work of the Hampton Folklore Society must be understood within, but also beyond, the bounds of both the Hampton Institute and the “scientific” frame offered by the ...
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Chapter three argues that the work of the Hampton Folklore Society must be understood within, but also beyond, the bounds of both the Hampton Institute and the “scientific” frame offered by the American Folklore Society. This chapter shows how the folklorists, focusing specifically on folklorists Robert Moton, resisted having their work confined to the ideology of the Hampton Institute, while also questioning the politics of assuming a “scientific,” and often objectifying, approach to the study of their own traditions. Set within the context of the emergence of the “New Negro” ideal, the second half of this chapter examines how the Society became a site of lively dialogue, where members of the larger black intellectual community, particularly Anna Julia Cooper, debated folklore’s role in creating a “new,” distinctly African American literature rooted in a social justice agenda.Less
Chapter three argues that the work of the Hampton Folklore Society must be understood within, but also beyond, the bounds of both the Hampton Institute and the “scientific” frame offered by the American Folklore Society. This chapter shows how the folklorists, focusing specifically on folklorists Robert Moton, resisted having their work confined to the ideology of the Hampton Institute, while also questioning the politics of assuming a “scientific,” and often objectifying, approach to the study of their own traditions. Set within the context of the emergence of the “New Negro” ideal, the second half of this chapter examines how the Society became a site of lively dialogue, where members of the larger black intellectual community, particularly Anna Julia Cooper, debated folklore’s role in creating a “new,” distinctly African American literature rooted in a social justice agenda.
Houston Baker and K. Merinda Simmons (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231169349
- eISBN:
- 9780231538503
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231169349.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
An America in which the color of one’s skin no longer matters would be unprecedented. With the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, that future suddenly seemed possible. Obama’s rise reflects ...
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An America in which the color of one’s skin no longer matters would be unprecedented. With the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, that future suddenly seemed possible. Obama’s rise reflects a nation of fluid populations and fortunes, a society in which a biracial individual could be embraced as a leader by all. Yet complicating this vision are shifting demographics, rapid redefinitions of race, and the instant invention of brands, trends, and identities that determine how we think about ourselves and the place of others. This book confronts the premise, advanced by black intellectuals, that the Obama administration marked the start of a “post-racial” era in the United States. While the “transcendent” and post-racial black elite declare victory over America’s longstanding codes of racial exclusion and racist violence, their evidence relies largely on their own salaries and celebrity. The chapters here strike at the certainty of those who insist life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are now independent of skin color and race in America. They argue, signify, and testify that “post-blackness” is a problematic mythology masquerading as fact—a dangerous new “race science” motivated by black transcendentalist individualism.Less
An America in which the color of one’s skin no longer matters would be unprecedented. With the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, that future suddenly seemed possible. Obama’s rise reflects a nation of fluid populations and fortunes, a society in which a biracial individual could be embraced as a leader by all. Yet complicating this vision are shifting demographics, rapid redefinitions of race, and the instant invention of brands, trends, and identities that determine how we think about ourselves and the place of others. This book confronts the premise, advanced by black intellectuals, that the Obama administration marked the start of a “post-racial” era in the United States. While the “transcendent” and post-racial black elite declare victory over America’s longstanding codes of racial exclusion and racist violence, their evidence relies largely on their own salaries and celebrity. The chapters here strike at the certainty of those who insist life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are now independent of skin color and race in America. They argue, signify, and testify that “post-blackness” is a problematic mythology masquerading as fact—a dangerous new “race science” motivated by black transcendentalist individualism.
Fionnghuala Sweeney and Kate Marsh (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748646401
- eISBN:
- 9780748684410
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748646401.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
The ten chapters in this book stretch and challenge current canonical configurations of modernism in two key ways: by considering the centrality of black artists, writers, and intellectuals as key ...
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The ten chapters in this book stretch and challenge current canonical configurations of modernism in two key ways: by considering the centrality of black artists, writers, and intellectuals as key actors and core presences in the development of a modernist avant-garde; and by interrogating ‘blackness’ as an aesthetic and political category at critical moments during the twentieth century. The book explores the term ‘Afromodernisms’ and addresses together the cognate fields of modernism and the black Atlantic.Less
The ten chapters in this book stretch and challenge current canonical configurations of modernism in two key ways: by considering the centrality of black artists, writers, and intellectuals as key actors and core presences in the development of a modernist avant-garde; and by interrogating ‘blackness’ as an aesthetic and political category at critical moments during the twentieth century. The book explores the term ‘Afromodernisms’ and addresses together the cognate fields of modernism and the black Atlantic.
Anne C. Rose
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807832813
- eISBN:
- 9781469605630
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807894095_rose
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
In the American South at the turn of the twentieth century, the legal segregation of the races and psychological sciences focused on selfhood emerged simultaneously. The two developments presented ...
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In the American South at the turn of the twentieth century, the legal segregation of the races and psychological sciences focused on selfhood emerged simultaneously. The two developments presented conflicting views of human nature. American psychiatry and psychology were optimistic about personality growth guided by the new mental sciences. Segregation, in contrast, placed racial traits said to be natural and fixed at the forefront of identity. In a society built on racial differences, raising questions about human potential, as psychology did, was unsettling. As this book lays out, the introduction of psychological thinking into the Jim Crow South produced neither a clear victory for racial equality nor a single-minded defense of traditional ways. Instead, professionals of both races treated the mind-set of segregation as a hazardous subject. The book examines the tensions stirred by mental science and restrained by southern custom. It highlights the role of southern black intellectuals who embraced psychological theories as an instrument of reform; their white counterparts, who proved wary of examining the mind; and northerners eager to change the South by means of science. The book argues that although psychology and psychiatry took root as academic disciplines, all these practitioners were reluctant to turn the sciences of the mind to the subject of race relations.Less
In the American South at the turn of the twentieth century, the legal segregation of the races and psychological sciences focused on selfhood emerged simultaneously. The two developments presented conflicting views of human nature. American psychiatry and psychology were optimistic about personality growth guided by the new mental sciences. Segregation, in contrast, placed racial traits said to be natural and fixed at the forefront of identity. In a society built on racial differences, raising questions about human potential, as psychology did, was unsettling. As this book lays out, the introduction of psychological thinking into the Jim Crow South produced neither a clear victory for racial equality nor a single-minded defense of traditional ways. Instead, professionals of both races treated the mind-set of segregation as a hazardous subject. The book examines the tensions stirred by mental science and restrained by southern custom. It highlights the role of southern black intellectuals who embraced psychological theories as an instrument of reform; their white counterparts, who proved wary of examining the mind; and northerners eager to change the South by means of science. The book argues that although psychology and psychiatry took root as academic disciplines, all these practitioners were reluctant to turn the sciences of the mind to the subject of race relations.
Lindon Barrett (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038006
- eISBN:
- 9780252095290
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038006.003.0006
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This concluding chapter likewise contains a eulogy from the other editors of this book, as well as a commentary on the publication history of Barrett's posthumous manuscript. Through discussing the ...
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This concluding chapter likewise contains a eulogy from the other editors of this book, as well as a commentary on the publication history of Barrett's posthumous manuscript. Through discussing the aims of compiling Barrett's work into a “clear, cogent argument” and the emotional forces that had shaped the creation of this volume, the chapter turns to the effects of a lack of closure for Barrett's untimely death. It briefly details the circumstances thereof, while also noting a disturbing trend of several other murders of prominent gay black intellectuals in recent years. The chapter ends on an uplifting note, however, as it closes with some hopeful remarks from the editors on continuing with Barrett's legacy to a tradition of black intellectual engagement.Less
This concluding chapter likewise contains a eulogy from the other editors of this book, as well as a commentary on the publication history of Barrett's posthumous manuscript. Through discussing the aims of compiling Barrett's work into a “clear, cogent argument” and the emotional forces that had shaped the creation of this volume, the chapter turns to the effects of a lack of closure for Barrett's untimely death. It briefly details the circumstances thereof, while also noting a disturbing trend of several other murders of prominent gay black intellectuals in recent years. The chapter ends on an uplifting note, however, as it closes with some hopeful remarks from the editors on continuing with Barrett's legacy to a tradition of black intellectual engagement.
