The Confluence of Racial Politics in America: Critical Writings compiles articles written by Earnest N. Bracey, Ph.D. that explore critical political issues facing African Americans, past and present. Students learn about the history of racism in American and sustained transgressions against people of color. The text empowers them to confront systemic racism and the structural racial injustices that continue on today. Part I features articles that discuss the relationship between Blacks and higher education. Students read about the significance of historically Black colleges and universities, the complex legacy of Brown vs. Board of Education, and more. In Part II, readers examine issues related to civil rights and Black politics. Selected readings cover the nonviolent politics of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, the social activism of Ruby Duncan, and the continued relevance of the Congressional Black Caucus. The final part encourages discussion of social justice, with articles that examine racial disparities in the criminal justice system, questions of equality in America, and the politics and impact of environmental racism. Unflinching in its truths and undeniably timely in nature, The Confluence of Racial Politics in America is well suited for courses in political science, American history, Black American history, and race and ethnicity.

The Confluence of Racial Politics in America: Critical Writings compiles articles written by Earnest N.

A “provocative and richly insightful new book” (The New York Times Book Review) that gives us a shrewd and penetrating analysis of the complex relationship between the first black president and his African-American constituency. Renowned for his insightful, common-sense critiques of racial politics, Randall Kennedy now tackles such hot-button issues as the nature of racial opposition to Obama; whether Obama has a singular responsibility to African Americans; the differences in Obama’s presentation of himself to blacks and to whites; the challenges posed by the dream of a post-racial society; the increasing irrelevance of a certain kind of racial politics and its consequences; the complex symbolism of Obama’s achievement and his own obfuscations and evasions regarding racial justice. Eschewing the critical excesses of both the left and the right, Kennedy offers an incisive view of Obama’s triumphs and travails, his strengths and weaknesses, as they pertain to the troubled history of race in America.

World War II played an important role in the trajectory of race and American political development, but the War's effects were much more complex than many assume. Steven White offers an extensive analysis of rarely utilized survey data and archival evidence to assess white racial attitudes and the executive branch response to civil rights advocacy. He finds that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the white mass public's racial policy attitudes largely did not liberalize during the war against Nazi Germany. In this context, advocates turned their attention to the possibility of unilateral action by the president, emphasizing a wartime civil rights agenda focused on discrimination in the defense industry and segregation in the military. This book offers a reinterpretation of this critical period in American political development, as well as implications for the theoretical relationship between war and the inclusion of marginalized groups in democratic societies.

This book demonstrates how certain African American writers radically re-envisioned core American ideals in order to make them serviceable for racial justice. Each writer's unprecedented reconstruction of key American values has the potential to energize American citizenship today.

This engaging, up-to-date collection of original essays focuses on the continuing struggle for minorities to gain political power in American cities. The essays included in this book were written specifically for this text by top urban scholars who have done extensive analysis of the development of urban policy in response to minority concerns. Each selection addresses a particular city's racially based electoral coalitions and leadership, as well as examining recent political changes, their impact, and future implications. Each essay also features the editors' successful "Political Incorporation Model" which provides a framework melding research on ethnic coalition with mobilization strategies and allows students to effectively compare one U.S. city to another.

Divided by Color supplies the reasons for this division, showing that racial resentment continues to exist. Despite a parade of recent books optimistically touting the demise of racial hostility in the United States, the authors marshal a wealth of the most current and comprehensive evidence available to prove their case.

"While historians have devoted an enormous amount of attention to documenting how African Americans gained access to formal politics in the mid-1960s, very few have scrutinized what happened next, and the small body of work that does consider the aftermath of the civil rights movement is almost entirely limited to the Black Power era. In Rumor, Repression, and Racial Politics, Derek Musgrove pushes much further, presenting a powerful new historical framework for understanding race and politics between 1965 and 1996. He argues that in order to make sense of this recent period, we need to examine the harassment of black elected officials - the ways black politicians were denied access to seats they'd won in elections or, after taking office, were targeted in corruption probes. Musgrove's aim is not to evaluate whether individual allegations of corruption had merit, but to establish what the pervasive harassment of black politicians has meant, politically and culturally, over the course of recent American history. It's a story that takes him from California to Michigan to Alabama, and along the way covers a fascinating range of topics: Watergate, the surveillance state, the power of conspiracy theories, the plunge in voter turnout, and even the strange political campaigns of Lyndon LaRouche"--Provided by publisher.

This book explores the life of one of Mississippi's greatest civil rights activists, Fannie Lou Hamer. Known for her daring, her brinkmanship and her impassioned speech-making, Hamer rose to prominence in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, an intrepid group which tried to unseat the predominantly white Democrats of Mississippi during the 1964 Democratic National Convention. She is particularly remembered for her speech before the Credentials Committee, seeking to end all-white representation of her home state. Hamer fought her entire life to expand freedom and basic rights to African Americans in the United States.

A study of the relationship between race and American politics, organised around the institutions and processes of American government. It includes readings by individuals like Bill Clinton, Charles Hamilton, and Carol Swain, across a wide variety of ideological perspectives.