Black intellectuals and Black society /

Black intellectuals and Black society /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Kilson, Martin, author.
Imprint:	New York : Columbia University Press, [2024]
Description:	xv, 277 pages ; 24 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	African American intellectuals -- Biography. African Americans -- Intellectual life -- 20th century. African American intellectuals. African Americans -- Intellectual life. Intellectual life. United States -- Intellectual life -- 20th century. United States. Biographies.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/13509780

Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:	West, Cornel, writer of foreword.
ISBN:	9780231215657 0231215657 9780231560900
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	"Political scientist Martin Kilson combines studies of the developmental dynamics of the twentieth-century Black intelligentsia in aggregate with studies of the intellectual odyssey (career and discourse) of representative African American intellectuals in particular. After Reconstruction, African Americans found themselves free, yet largely excluded from politics, higher education, and the professions. Drawing on his professional research into political leadership and intellectual development in African American society, Kilson explores how a modern Black intelligentsia developed in the face of institutionalized racism. In his profiles of Horace Mann Bond, John Aubrey Davis, Ralph Bunche, Harold Cruise, E. Franklin Frazier, Adelaide M. Cromwell (the one chapter in the book written by the author's wife, Marion Kilson), Ishmael Reed, and Cornel West, Kilson argues for the ongoing necessity of Black leaders in the tradition of W. E. B. Du Bois, who summoned the "Talented Tenth" to champion Black progress. Among the many dynamics that have shaped African American advancement, Kilson focuses on the damage--and eventual decline--of color elitism among the Black professional class, the contrasting approaches of Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, and the consolidation of an ethos of self-conscious racial leadership. Black leaders who assumed this obligation helped usher in the civil rights movement. But mingled among the fruits of victory are the persistent challenges of poverty and inequality. Kilson takes the reader on an analytical journey through the historical thickets of American racism out of which the multifaceted modern dynamics that defined the African American intelligentsia in aggregate and many thousands of African American intellectuals' formation-identity-in particular evolved. He considers the professional careers and discourse of members of the intelligentsia influenced by the Du Boisian leadership legacy, the varying intellectual styles represented among the African American intelligentsia, and the ideological and political patterns that have vied for prominence among the evolving twentieth-century African American intelligentsia in the development for the life chances of African Americans in general"--
Other form:	Online version: Kilson, Martin Black intellectuals and Black society New York : Columbia University Press, [2024] 9780231560900

Description
Summary:	This book presents the trailblazing political scientist Martin L. Kilson's essays on leading Black intellectuals of the twentieth century. Kilson examines the ideas and careers of several key thinkers, placing their intellectual odysseys in the context of the dynamics that shaped the Black intelligentsia more broadly. He argues that the trajectory of twentieth-century Black intellectuals was determined by the interplay between formal ideas and Black egalitarian struggle.<br> <br> Beginning with the tension between W. E. B. Du Bois's civil rights activism and Booker T. Washington's accommodationism, Kilson explores the formation and evolution of Black intellectuals and activists across generations. Chapters consider Horace Mann Bond's career in higher education, political scientist John Aubrey Davis's transition from civil rights activist to federal policy technocrat, Ralph Bunche's writings on European colonial rule in Africa, Harold Cruse's classic polemic The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual , E. Franklin Frazier's analysis of the Black bourgeoisie, Adelaide M. Cromwell's studies of the challenges facing elite Black women, and Ishmael Reed and Cornel West's advocacy as public intellectuals amid a conservative turn. Offering timely and engaging insights into the lives and work of pivotal Black intellectuals and activists, this book sheds new light on the abiding questions and debates in Black political thought.
Physical Description:	xv, 277 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:	9780231215657 0231215657 9780231560900