The story of black emancipation is one of the most dramatic themes of American history, covering racism, murder, poverty and extreme heroism. Figures such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King are the demigods of the freedom movements, both film and household figures. This major text explores the African-American experience of the twentieth century with particular reference to six outstanding race leaders. Their philosophies and strategies for racial advancement are compared and set against the historical framework and constraints within which they functioned. The book also examines the 'grass roots' of black protest movements in America, paying particular attention to the major civil rights organizations as well as black separatist groups such as the Nation of Islam.

Introduction and Overview; Victoria Earle Matthews: Residence and Reform; African Americans and Social Work in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1900-1930; Birdye Henrietta Haynes: A Pioneer Settlement House Worker; Margaret Murray Washington: Organizer of Rural African American Women; Marcus Garvey and Community Development via the UNIA; Ida B. Wells-Barnett: An Uncompromising Style; Lawrence A. Oxley: Defining State Public Welfare among African Americans; George Edmund Haynes and Elizabeth Ross Haynes: Empowerment Practice among African American Social Welfare Pioneers; Janie Porter Barrett and the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls: Community Response to the Needs of African American Children ; Eugene Kinckle Jones: A Statesman for the Times; Mary Church Terrell and Her Mission: Giving Decades of Quiet Service; Thyra J. Edwards: Internationalist Social Worker; Sarah Collins Fernandis and Her Hidden Work; E. Franklin Frazier and Social Work: Unity and Conflict; Historic Development of African American Child Welfare Services; Traditional Helping Roles of Older African American Woman: The Concept of Self-Help.

Biographical studies of fifteen twentieth-century black leaders.

This revised and expanded edition traces the lives of key American civil rights leaders as they willingly risk their lives for the civil rights cause, including A. Philip Randolph, Thurgood Marshall, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, and Ella Baker.

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. A wide range of issues are considered in this volume, beginning with the definition of leadership and the concept of Black leadership. Gordon then considers outstanding examples of Black leadership in contemporary America in a variety of fields. Scholars and students in history, political science, and ethnic studies will find this an important resource for understanding Black leadership and its impact on American life.

A critical examination of these important figures, combined with a useful general survey of modern black American history.

CHOICE 2000 Outstanding Academic Title Written by two preeminent scholars of the subject, this book provides a panoramic view of the theory, research, and praxis of African American leadership. Walters and Smith offer a great deal to students of black leadership, as well as important strategy and policy recommendations for black leaders. The book first presents a comprehensive assessment of the social science research literature on black leadership. It finds that older studies (1930s to 1960s) dealt with the nascent formation of leadership theory, where blacks were located predominantly in the context of southern politics and had to adopt a conservative to moderate leadership style. The authors also review and evaluate research on black leadership from the 1970s to the present and suggest attention be given to studies of leadership that involve community level leadership, female leaders, black mayors, and black conservatives. African American Leadership also focuses on the practice of black leadership. It begins with an analysis of the roles of black leadership and historical analysis of strategies or "strategy shift." The authors then provide illustrative case studies of the styles of black leadership. They examine the continued utilization of mass mobilization in the form of boycotts, direct action, and mass demonstrations and marches. The issue of collective black leadership or the framework of unity—an illusive but necessary form of community organization—is also explored, and serious attention is given to issues, recruitment, and deployment.

The most successful business leaders always have their own compelling philosophies, but all too often the thoughts and ideologies of high-profile African American leaders are forgotten or passed over. This exciting new study reflects on some of the leading black business pioneers of the late 19th and early 20th century.

In Collective Courage, Jessica Gordon Nembhard chronicles African American cooperative business ownership and its place in the movements for Black civil rights and economic equality. Not since W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1907 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans has there been a full-length, nationwide study of African American cooperatives. Collective Courage extends that story into the twenty-first century. Many of the players are well known in the history of the African American experience: Du Bois, A. Philip Randolph and the Ladies' Auxiliary to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Jo Baker, George Schuyler and the Young Negroes’ Co-operative League, the Nation of Islam, and the Black Panther Party. Adding the cooperative movement to Black history results in a retelling of the African American experience, with an increased understanding of African American collective economic agency and grassroots economic organizing. To tell the story, Gordon Nembhard uses a variety of newspapers, period magazines, and journals; co-ops’ articles of incorporation, minutes from annual meetings, newsletters, budgets, and income statements; and scholarly books, memoirs, and biographies. These sources reveal the achievements and challenges of Black co-ops, collective economic action, and social entrepreneurship. Gordon Nembhard finds that African Americans, as well as other people of color and low-income people, have benefitted greatly from cooperative ownership and democratic economic participation throughout the nation’s history.

Beginning with the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case, this book traces the lives of six American civil rights leaders as they willingly risk their lives for the civil rights cause: A. Philip Randolph, Frederick D. Patterson, Thurgood Marshall, Whitney M. Young, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and Fannie Lou Hamer.