We Have No Leaders: African Americans in the Post-Civil Rights Era (Suny Series in Afro-American Studies) (SUNY series in African American Studies) - Softcover

Smith, Robert C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0791431363 ISBN 13: 9780791431368

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 1996

Synopsis

A comprehensive study of African-American politics since the civil rights era argues that the black movement has been coopted by mainstream institutions, due to the political traditions of blacks themselves and the decay of the black community. Simultaneous. UP.

About this title

Review:

"A thorough and well-written account of the decline of the civil rights movement. I hope it will contribute to the discussion of how to breathe new life into the movement." -- John R. Howard, State University of New York, Purchase

"This is the broadest view and review of African American politics in the post-civil rights era of which I am aware. This makes for a very rich understanding of the era, and each of the organizations and policy issues Smith reviews. His work is a major contribution to the literature on African American politics." -- Dianne Pinderhughes, University of Illinois

"Professor Robert C. Smith has produced a work the breadth and depth of which is an important milestone in the scholarship of black politics. In doing so, he teases out some of the most important questions in the field and, consequently, in the use of politics by the black community. Along the way, he produces gems of insight and theoretical importance." -- Ronald W. Walters, from the Foreword

From the Back Cover:

This is the first comprehensive study of African American politics from the end of the 1960s civil rights era to the present. Not an optimistic book, it concludes that the black movement has been almost wholly encapsulated into mainstream institutions, coopted, and marginalized. As a result, the author argues, African American leadership has become largely irrelevant in the development of organizations, strategies, and programs that would address the multifaceted problems of race in the post-civil rights era. Meanwhile, the core black community has become increasingly segregated, and its society, economy, culture, and institutions of governance and uplift have decayed. In exhaustive detail Smith traces this sad state of affairs to certain internal attributes of African American political culture and institutional processes, and to the structure of American politics and its economic and cultural underpinnings. Sure to be controversial, this book challenges both liberal and conservative notions of the black political struggle in the United States. It will serve as a major reference for academic study and a point of departure for political activists.

About this edition

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0791431363
• ISBN 13: 9780791431368
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 420