Read complete books and articles on: African-American Intellectuals

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14 of the Best Books and Articles on: African-American Intellectuals

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Black Intellectuals, Black Cognition, and a Black Aesthetic » Read Now
by W. D. Wright. 210 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, History, Education, Entire Library

Neither American history nor American society anticipated, sanctioned, or encouraged the development of either Black intellectuals or a Black middle class. Both emerged and developed against horrendous obstacles and both are great achievements. Both were sanctioned and given moral direction by the...
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Neither American history nor American society anticipated, sanctioned, or encouraged the development of either Black intellectuals or a Black middle class. Both emerged and developed against horrendous obstacles and both are great achievements. Both were sanctioned and given moral direction by the American Negro Academy, an organization founded in 1897 by Alexander Crummell, W.E.B. Du Bois, Francis Grimke, and others for the purpose of organizing Black intellectuals to defend and redeem Blacks, through intellectual, artistic, and scientific achievements in the face of racist detractors, and to help the Black middle class develop as the leadership class of Black America. Black intellectuals have had a difficult time fulfilling a leadership role, partly because they have failed to remember the three cultural heritages of Black people: Black, African, and Euro-American. The times demand that Black intellectuals approach themselves and their world from all three cultural perspectives, for the sake ofBlack people and for the sake of America, both of which desperately need their leadership.
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2.

The Cornel West Reader » Read Now
by Cornel West. 604 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, History, Entire Library

An anthology of the best work of an absolutely essential philosopher of the modern American experience, this reader brings together West's essays on race, religion, politics, philosophy and the arts.
3.

Anxious Intellects: Academic Professionals, Public Intellectuals, and Enlightenment Values (Chap. 1 "Publicity: Black Intellectuals as Inorganic Representatives") » Read Now
by John Michael. 220 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...work by and about African American intellectuals, one manifestation...dominant culture to the African American intellectuals it elevates to prominence...especially hard on...
4.

The New Intellectuals, in The Atlantic Monthly » Read Now
by Robert S. Boynton. 13 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Literature, Entire Library
5.

Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line (Chap. 2 "It's Not What You Know, It's How You Show It: Black Public Intellectuals") » Read Now
by Michael Eric Dyson. 234 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Reflecting Black: African-American Cultural Criticism...It Black Public Intellectuals page 47...It Black Public Intellectuals Distracted...including that of African...
6.

Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance (Chap. 6 "The Black Intelligentsia: Promoters," Chap. 7 "The Black Intellegentsia: Critics" and Chap. 8 "Black Writers and White Promoters") » Read Now
by Cary D. Wintz. 278 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...shared by a number of black writers and intellectuals who centered their activities around...erratically around several older black intellectuals who were established in...
7.

We Are Coming: The Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth-Century Black Women » Read Now
by Shirley Wilson Logan. 262 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Shirley Wilson Logan analyzes the distinctive rhetorical features in the persuasive discourse of nineteenth-century black women, concentrating on the public discourse of club and church women from 1880 until 1900.
Logan develops each chapter in this illustrated study around a feature of public...
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Shirley Wilson Logan analyzes the distinctive rhetorical features in the persuasive discourse of nineteenth-century black women, concentrating on the public discourse of club and church women from 1880 until 1900.
Logan develops each chapter in this illustrated study around a feature of public address as best exemplified in the oratory of a particular woman speaker of the era. She analyzes not only speeches but also editorials, essays, and letters.
Logan first focuses on the prophetic oratory of Maria Stewart, the first American-born black woman to speak publicly. Turning to Frances Harper, she considers speeches that argue for common interests between divergent communities. And she demonstrates that central to the antilynching rhetoric of Ida Wells is the concept of "presence, " or the tactic of enhancing certain selected elements of the presentation.
In her discussion of Fannie Barrier Williams and Anna Cooper, Logan shows that when speaking to which club women and black clergymen, both Williams and,Cooper employ what Kenneth Burke called identification. To analyze the rhetoric of Victoria Matthews, she applies Carolyn Miller's modification of Lloyd Bitzer's concept of the rhetorical situation.
Logan also examines the discourse of women associated with the black Baptist women's movement and those participating in college-affiliated conferences.
The book includes an appendix with little-known speeches and essays by Anna Julia Cooper, Selena Sloan Butler, Lucy Wilmot Smith, Mary V. Cook, Adella Hunt Logan, Victoria Earle Matthews, Lucy C. Laney, and Georgia Swift King.
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8.

June Jordan and the New Black Intellectuals, in African American Review » Read Now
by Scott MacPhail. 48 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...whole generation of African-American intellectuals is making the transition...understandings of the African-American intellectuals audience, purpose...and the task of all...
9.

The Fruits of Integration: Black Middle-Class Ideology and Culture, 1960-1990 » Read Now
by Charles T. Banner-Haley. 238 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

The role of black middle-class culture & ideology in reshaping mainstream America.
10.

African American and Francophone Black Intellectuals during the Harlem Renaissance, in The Historian » Read Now
by Kenneth R. Janken. 19 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Parisian black community, African American intellectuals recognized a link...that light. Indeed, African American intellectuals looked past the many...independence.(48)...
11.

Biography, Race Vindication, and African American Intellectuals, in The Journal of African American History » Read Now
by V. P. Franklin, Bettye Collier-Thomas. 15 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...race vindication, and African American intellectuals. by V.P. Franklin...JNH) focused on what African American intellectuals do in general, and...biographical studies of...
12.

Worrying about Race, 1985-1995: Reflections during a Troubled Time » Read Now
by Sanford Pinsker. 144 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Race dominates the American agenda as few topics do, but it is a difficult subject to worry about publicly. The essays and reviews in Pinsker's collection focus on the need to sharpen our intellectual debate about race, to address the economic conditions that foster despair among certain racial...
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Race dominates the American agenda as few topics do, but it is a difficult subject to worry about publicly. The essays and reviews in Pinsker's collection focus on the need to sharpen our intellectual debate about race, to address the economic conditions that foster despair among certain racial groups, and to recognize the differences beween racial groups as well as the commonalties that bind us together as Americans.
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13.

Against the Odds: Scholars Who Challenged Racism in the Twentieth Century » Read Now
by Benjamin P. Bowser, Paul Grant, Louis Kushnick. 264 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Over the course of the past century the struggle against racism took many forms, from petitions and lawsuits to sit-ins and marches. This book records the testimony of eleven scholar-activists who challenged prevailing racial beliefs and practices while engaging in resistance and reform. Included in...
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Over the course of the past century the struggle against racism took many forms, from petitions and lawsuits to sit-ins and marches. This book records the testimony of eleven scholar-activists who challenged prevailing racial beliefs and practices while engaging in resistance and reform. Included in this group are nine African Americans (Kenneth B. Clark, John Henrik Clarke, St. Clair Drake, W.E.B. Du Bois, John Hope Franklin, John Glover Jackson, Hylan Lewis, Frank Snowden Jr., and Robert C. Weaver); one Sri Lankan who lives and works in Britain (A. Sivanandan); and one white American (Herbert Aptheker).
Most of these men began their careers before World War II, in a time when biological conceptions of race dominated public policy and severely limited the opportunities available to people of color. By struggling with these impediments in their personal and professional lives, each in his own way helped redefine race as the social and cultural construct it has always been.
To highlight both the similarities and the differences in their experiences, the editors asked each of the subjects the same set of general questions about formative influences, major obstacles, and principal accomplishments. These were followed by more narrowly focused queries about specific writings. Most of the responses were recorded on tape as interviews; several were submitted as written reminiscences; and one, the essay on Du Bois, as the shared recollection of two associates who had worked closely with him for many years.
The result is a singular collection of autobiographical accounts that not only testify to the personal courage of these individuals in overcoming the ravages of racism but also documenttheir contributions to the establishment of a vital antiracist tradition in American thought and culture.
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14.

Rayford W. Logan and the Dilemma of the African-American Intellectual » Read Now
by Kenneth Robert Janken. 319 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

'A thoughtful, sensitive study of one of the most important historians of African American culture in this century...Rayford Logan deserves to be remembered, and Janken's study ensures that his fighting spirit and devotion to learning will remain a lesson to future scholars.'--Arnold Rampersad, Princeton University