Black Intellectuals: Race and Responsibility in American LifeW. W. Norton & Company, 1996 - 335 pages "An important book, significant because it highlights the diversity and richness of Afro-American intellectual life.... It will surely be a crucial reference work for years to come". -- New York Times Book ReviewIn the volumes of literature on black history and thought, few have focused on the black thinkers who have shaped the course of American culture. This landmark work charts the contours of black intellectual life across American history and chronicles its fluctuating fortunes.Black Intellectuals offers a centuries-deep analysis of black life, beginning with the arrival of Africans as slaves, when medicine men and conjurers held ancient, powerful wisdom. Author William Banks goes on to discuss prominent figures ranging from black pioneers like Alexander Crummell, Frederick Douglass, and Anna Cooper to intellectuals of the modern age such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Alain Locke, E. Franklin Frazier, Toni Morrison, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. These and hundreds of other black scholars and artists -- many of them interviewed for this volume -- people an enlightened and imaginative landscape, fascinating for both its range and its diversity. |
Contents
Laying the Foundations | 3 |
Black Thinkers in a White Movement 2323 | 22 |
The Black Intellectual Infrastructure | 33 |
Slowly Making Their Mark | 48 |
Prosperity Change and More of the Same | 68 |
A Talented But Trapped Tenth | 92 |
Not a Lull Not a Storm | 118 |
Standing at the Crossroads | 144 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
abolitionist academic activists African American Alain Locke Ameri became black Americans black artists black colleges black community black cultural black intellectuals black masses black scholars black students black studies black thinkers black women black writers born career century Chicago civil rights Claude McKay Colored Countee Cullen creative critics economic editor educated blacks Ellison ethnic faculty Frederick Douglass free blacks freedom graduate Harlem Renaissance Harold Cruse Harvard Henry Louis Gates high school Howard Hurston ideas individual institutions intellec Jewish Journal Langston Hughes liberal literary mainstream Malcolm X middle-class militant moral movement NAACP nationalist Negro northern novel organization Ph.D political professor programs published race racial racism Ralph Ellison received a B.A. role slavery slaves social society South southern Sowell talented taught teachers teaching Thurman tion tradition urban W. E. B. Du Bois Wallace Thurman Washington wrote York young