Black Leadership

At the heart of this major statement on black political, intellectual, and religious leaders of 20th-century America are critical portraits of four leaders whose legacies speak to the challenges of race, class, and power: Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Harold Washington, and Louis Farrakhan.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of Black leadership in every aspect of American life, including movements for social justice, education, business, and politics. In the quest for human rights and social advancement, African-American leaders have emerged to lead the fight to overcome racial and economic barriers. This struggle has influenced the exercise of Black leadership in many other areas and the author uses an interdisciplinary approach to reveal the changes, continuities, and variety of African-American approaches to effective leadership. The book also suggests a theoretical framework for future research on the impact of Black leadership in America.

Why have Blacks won political empowerment in some cities and in others remained subordinated or had their achievements rolled back? Why do some cities have many Black leaders with multi-racial appeal while other cities have none? Subordination or Empowerment answers these questions through detailed historical examinations of the Black struggle for political power in Chicago, Gary, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. Keiser argues that electoral competition among White factions has created opportunities for Black leaders to win genuine political empowerment and avoid subordination. When electoral competition among Whites does not exist, Black votes lose their electoral leverage, leading to the rise of extra-electoral strategies. Keiser's dynamic theory of leadership formation explains the current appeal of Black separatism and messianism at the local and national levels and the consequent rise of leaders such as Louis Farakhan, and offers a rejoinder to Cornel West's critique of Black leadership in Race Matters.

This book is designed to explore the historical and current level of African-American political participation, to assess the fruits of participation, and to provide recommendations for improving the efficacy of African-American political participation in the future. By focusing on the national rather than local/urban contexts of black politics, by directly assessing the impact of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on black political progress, and by evaluating the role of economic stagnation as well as cultural developments in constraining that progress, the volume provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of these issues.

In the 1960s a critical fracture occurred in the American Civil Rights movement creating, in the process, a new group of black nationalists.The burgeoning militant wing of the movement believed it had found a natural ally in Fidel Castro's Cuban revolutionary regime and forged a close relationship with its leaders. Revolutionary Cuba offered solidarity and support to civil rights leaders and urban militants alike, publicized throughout the world the plight of oppressed African Americans, exemplified a successful eradication of imperialist control, and fought against colonialism in Africa. Most important. Castro claimed his government had purged racism from Cuban society.

Ruth Reitan has meticulously researched this rich and largely unexplored relationship between the Castro regime and the U.S. black leadership in the 1960s. New insights, interviews, and alternative sources are intertwined with accounts that have been culled from the activists' writings and speeches generated over the past threedecades. These sources are also weighed against current scholarship, original documents, and newspaper accounts, and are placed in historical context.

Black conservatism is no oxymoron. Recent polls have indicated that an increasing number of black Americans identified themselves as conservatives, favoring smaller government, lower taxes, tougher crime laws, welfare reform, and personal initiative. While applauding the moral and legal victories of the Civil Rights Movement, the conservative spokespeople in this dynamic new collection reject the claims of inequities and what they consider to the self-serving agenda of the present civil rights establishment. National leaders such as Justice Clarence Thomas and former Representative Gary Franks and writers such as Shelby Steele and Glenn Loury appear either as contributors or as subjects in this volume. They emphasize the grassroots aspects of black conservatism with a reliance on common sense and common humanity.