Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (Gender and American Culture)

Book Description

One of the most important African American leaders of the twentieth century and perhaps the most influential woman in the civil rights movement, Ella Baker (1903-1986) was an activist whose remarkable career spanned fifty years and touched thousands of lives.

A gifted grassroots organizer, Baker shunned the spotlight in favor of vital behind-the-scenes work that helped power the black freedom struggle. She was a national officer and key figure in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and a prime mover in the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Baker made a place for herself in predominantly male political circles that included W. E. B. DuBois, Thurgood Marshall, and Martin Luther King Jr., all the while maintaining relationships with a vibrant group of women, students, and activists both black and white.

In this deeply researched biography, Barbara Ransby chronicles Baker's long and rich political career as an organizer, an intellectual, and a teacher, from her early experiences in depression-era Harlem to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Ransby shows Baker to be a complex figure whose radical, democratic worldview, commitment to empowering the black poor, and emphasis on group-centered, grassroots leadership set her apart from most of her political contemporaries. Beyond documenting an extraordinary life, the book paints a vivid picture of the African American fight for justice and its intersections with other progressive struggles worldwide across the twentieth century.

Customer Reviews:

More pieces of the puzszle.......2006-06-07

This was a great book. Ella Baker was ahead of het time.This is a great read if you like the history of the civil right movement.Ms. Baker I hope to meet you in heaven.

Phenomenal book about a phenomenal woman.......2005-12-09

Dr. Ransby provides a well-structured and insightful biography of one of the most important, yet least well-known, leaders of the civil rights movement in the United States. This book is strongly recommended for any student of modern U.S. history.

a decisive American life--and a first rate biography.......2003-05-29

Ella Baker must be the most underrated figure in U.S. history. There are plenty of Presidents who have done less to shape their own times than Ella Baker. She decisively shaped two of the most important national civil rights organizations--the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference--and was the single most decisive figure in a third--the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Only Martin Luther King Jr. can be considered a rival in importance to the African American freedom movement, and yet most Americans have never even heard of Ella Baker. This exhaustively researched and well written biography should go a long way toward filling that gap.

Book Description

In a major revision of accepted wisdom, this book, originally published by UNC Press in 1991, demonstrates that American social Christianity played an important role in racial reform during the period between Emancipation and the civil rights movement.

As organizations created by the heirs of antislavery sentiment foundered in the mid-1890s, Ralph Luker argues, a new generation of black and white reformers—many of them representatives of American social christianity—explored a variety of solutions to the problem of racial conflict. Some of them helped to organize the Federal Council of Churches in 1909, while others returned to abolitionist and home missionary strategies in organizing the NAACP in 1910 and the National Urban League in 1911. A half century later, such organizations formed the institutional core of America's civil rights movement. Luker also shows that the black prophets of social Christianity who espoused theological personalism created an influential tradition that eventually produced Martin Luther King Jr.

Customer Reviews:

Superbly researched.......1999-04-12

This is a wonderful history of the social gospel movement and how it dealt with the issue of race. Most noteworthy, in my opinion, is its wonderful bibliography - combined with the citations, this totals over 100 pages, providing great references for anyone who wishes to research the topic (as I recently did for a class).

The Segregated Origins of Social Security: African Americans and the Welfare State

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The Segregated Origins of Social Security: African Americans and the Welfare State
Mary Poole
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Social Security | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0807856886

Book Description

The relationship between welfare and racial inequality has long been understood as a fight between liberal and conservative forces. In The Segregated Origins of Social Security, Mary Poole challenges that basic assumption. Meticulously reconstructing the behind-the-scenes politicking that gave birth to the 1935 Social Security Act, Poole demonstrates that segregation was built into the very foundation of the welfare state because white policy makers--both liberal and conservative--shared an interest in preserving white race privilege.

Although northern white liberals were theoretically sympathetic to the plight of African Americans, Poole says, their primary aim was to save the American economy by salvaging the pride of America's "essential" white male industrial workers. The liberal framers of the Social Security Act elevated the status of Unemployment Insurance and Social Security--and the white workers they were designed to serve--by differentiating them from welfare programs, which served black workers.

Book Description

A publishing landmark, the first biography of the man who brought the NAACP to national prominence.

From his earliest years, Walter White was determined to transcend the rigid boundaries of segregation-era America. An African American of exceptionally light complexion, White went undercover as a young man to expose the depredations of Southern lynch mobs. As executive secretary of the NAACP from 1931 until his death in 1955, White was among the nation's preeminent champions of civil rights, leading influential national campaigns against lynching, segregation in the military, and racism in Hollywood movies.

White is portrayed here for the first time in his full complexity, a man whose physical appearance enabled him to negotiate two very different worlds in segregated America, yet who saw himself above all as an organization man, "Mr. NAACP." Deeply researched and richly documented, White's biography provides a revealing vantage point from which to view the leading political and cultural figures of his time—including W.E.B. DuBois, Eleanor Roosevelt, and James Weldon Johnson—and an unrivaled glimpse into the contentious world of civil rights politics and activism in the pre-civil rights era.

Customer Reviews:

"voluntary Negro" and striking activist captured beautifully.......2003-08-11

Walter White was a blond-haired, blue-eyed charmer and "voluntary Negro" who could have slipped across the color line and passed as a white man. Instead, he burned his incandescent energies in the 20th century's many struggles for black freedom. Kenneth Janken, a solid and capable historian, captures White wonderfully in this subtle, fair-minded and fascinating biography.

At great personal peril, Walter White used his light complextion to investigate 41 lynchings and eight "race riots" in which white mobs killed dozens of African Americans. His courage and eloquence--and sometimes his self-promotion and deceit--lifted White to leadership in the NAACP. There he put the brakes on mass-based political organizing wherever it bubbled up. In fact, much of what we think of as "the civil rights movement" happened in spite of, not because of, the national office of the NAACP.

His investigations of mob violence earned White a reputation as a fearless race man. But as executive secretary of the NAACP, White proved himself to be the classic organization man. A skilled lobbyist and fund-raiser, White favored a careful, bureaucratic NAACP than was profoundly undemocratic and sometimes unresponsive to its rank and file members.

At the end of his life, White sank into such despair that he advocated that African Americans literally bleach themselves into white society. His article in LOOK magazine, "Has Science Conquered the Color Line?" argued that chemical treatments to lighten skin color "will provide a way to get fair treatment [Negroes] have always wanted" and "let them live like other Americans and be judged on their own merits." It was as if someone suggested that the ccure for anti-Semitism was wholesale conversion to Christianity! The staggering pessimism beneath these arguments spoke volumes about White's own agonies. And yet White had given his whole life to push the struggle forward, and Janken certainly does not sell him short. In fact, it is the central strength of this book that Janken understands the diverse basis of African American politics, which differed by class and region and in which personal ambitions and ideological clashes also play their part.

It was perhaps fitting that this "voluntary Negro" leader of such mixed elements died in 1955, only months before African American women in Montgomery organized the bus boycott that lifted up a far more bold and imaginative leader, and a revolt of the black masses that would capture the moral imagination of the world. Walter White would not have approved, but he sought the same "sense of somebodiness" that Dr. King wanted for his people. If a race man like Walter White, fearless enough to brave the mob, could not quite escape from his own internalized white supremacy, we should not be shocked to find it lingering in our own minds.

Kenneth Janken has captured a rich, subtle, and important American life with impeccable research and an engaging prose style, and I went away from this book with a deeper understanding of 20th century US racial politics. And unlike, for example, certain biographies--Hugh Pearson's slapdash book on Huey Newton, for example--you can trust Janken's careful research and his historical assessments.

Informative, But the Author Has Too Many Biases.......2003-04-12

Kenneth Janken hads written a very informative book about Walter White. What's good about it is that it rectifies the dearth of good books that really delve into the gravity regarding the history of America's racial sickness. Walter White had a front row seat to this reality. He was able to investigate some of the most gruesome lynchings in American history because most people thought he was Caucasian. The extent of the racial pogroms detailed in this book is amazing. It dramatizes how throughout U.S. history African Americans have had to beg, borrow and steal our way to a modicum of respect. It is especially revealing with regard to the condecension displayed by Jews who called themselves helpful in advancing African American civil rights. And it shows how all people labled as oppressed minorities strive to join the majority group where ever they live. Yet African Americans are the sole group in U.S. society for whom a concerted effort has been made (and continues to be made) to keep on the outside. There are flaws to the book, however. For example, like so many Caucasians, Janken refuses African Americans any right to complexity. By that I mean that he denies us the right to class distinctions by chastising White for looking down his nose at African Americans at the bottom who didn't do their best to improve themselves. This is a common attitude amongst so-called liberal and leftists Caucasians, who seem to feel that all African Americans at the bottom are noble. Yet these same Caucasians do their best to identify themselves as "white," as in separate from African Americans, the implication being that racial distinctions that really aren't legitimate, indeed, are legitimate. Such people simply can't seem to accept the fact that ever since the end of slavery there has been a significant cadre' of African Americans at the bottom who have no interest at all in improving themselves. It is this "noble savage" element which continues to fascinate most Caucasian Americans, who just can't seem to accept any African Americans who seek assimilation and self-improvement as "true blacks." In addition, there is at least one error in the book. Janken discusses the struggle to build the VA hospital in Tuskegee Alabama at the end of World War I. In his discussion he erroneously states that efforts to ensure that the staff of the hospital was all Caucasian were temporarily successful. This was not true at all. From the very beginning, the president of Tuskegee, Robert Moton, and school physician John A. Kenney Sr., successfully resisted all efforts to staff the hospital with Caucasians. The other criticism I have of the book is that in many passages it is overwritten (example: "[White] was no Pollyanna, and he was the angry black soldiers' amanuensis." What the h... does "amanuensis" mean?). Too often Janken strives for words that make a reader run to his dictionary unnecessarily. In this he is like fellow historian, David Levering Lewis. Overall, I recommend this book for informativeness only.

Freedom's Sword: The NAACP and the Struggle Against Racism, 1909-1969

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Freedom's Sword
a worthy purchase and read
Important 20th Century History
Jonas and the NAACP

Freedom's Sword: The NAACP and the Struggle Against Racism, 1909-1969
Gilbert Jonas
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

20th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books

General | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Human Rights | Constitutional Law | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Education | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 041595665X

Book Description

Freedom's Sword is the first account to detail the remarkable, lasting achievements of the NAACP's first sixty years. From its pivotal role in overturning the Jim Crow laws in the South to the twenty-year court campaign culminating with Brown v. the Board of Education, the NAACP has been at the forefront of the struggle against American racism. Gilbert Jonas, a fifty-year veteran of the organization, tracks America's political and social landscape period by period, as the NAACP grew to 400,000 members and was recognized by both blacks and whites as the leading force for social justice.

Jonas recounts the historic combined efforts of ordinary citizens and black leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, and Thurgood Marshall to root out white-only political primaries, separate schools, and segregated city buses. Freedom's Sword is a vivid and passionately written account of the single most influential secular organization in black America.

Customer Reviews:

Freedom's Sword.......2005-04-28

Freedom's Sword is a hugely impressive and thorough undertaking. At the same time, Jonas' heart and soul clearly shine through. A must read for any student of American history, government, political science or the civil rights movement.

a worthy purchase and read.......2005-02-10

gilbert jonas provides a fascinating first-person look at the events and personalities that shaped an important era in our nation's history. highly recommended.

Important 20th Century History.......2005-01-12

This book is an exciting account of an often overlooked and very important part of United States Twentieth Century history. It is a scholarly and at the same time passionate telling of the events in the 1920's to 1950's that culminated in the civil rights movement of the 1960's. Excellent footnotes, especially helpful for those who may wish to do further study.

Jonas and the NAACP.......2004-12-23

Because of his many years of connections with the NAACP, only Gil Jonas could have written such a thorough history of this important period in the life of the NAACP and the country. The detail is extravagant and very readable. This is a must for anyone interested in civil rights and race relations in the USA.
Murray Frank

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Naacp Crusade Against Lynching 1909-50
Zangrando
Manufacturer: Temple University Press,U.S.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Criminology | Crime & Criminals | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Demography | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 087722174X

Veiled Visions: The 1906 Atlanta Race Riot and the Reshaping of American Race Relations

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Veiled Visions: The 1906 Atlanta Race Riot and the Reshaping of American Race Relations
David Fort Godshalk
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

African-American & Black | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

Discrimination & Racism | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0807856266
Release Date: 2006-02-23

Book Description

In 1906 Atlanta, after a summer of inflammatory headlines and accusations of black-on-white sexual assaults, armed white mobs attacked African Americans, resulting in at least twenty-five black fatalities. Atlanta's black residents fought back and repeatedly defended their neighborhoods from white raids. Placing this four-day riot in a broader narrative of twentieth-century race relations in Atlanta, in the South, and in the United States, David Fort Godshalk examines the riot's origins and how memories of this cataclysmic event shaped black and white social and political life for decades to come.

Amazon.com

Born in Brooklyn in 1865, Mary White Ovington carried, throughout her long life, a fine sense of the abolitionist spirit that had so quickened her parents' generation. A lively but somewhat unfocused intellectual, she drifted through social circles and movements until, at the age of 36, she met the African American educator Booker T. Washington and, shortly afterward, the activist W.E.B. Du Bois. Her eyes, writes Carolyn Wedin, opened wider when she took a tour of the South in 1906, in the wake of a series of bloody race riots. Ovington returned to New York convinced that matters could improve for African Americans only through well-coordinated political organization that would demand, among other things, voting rights and social justice. In 1909, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, Ovington issued a call to renew the struggle for political and civil liberty. Organizing parades, antilynching protests, and conferences, the resultant National Association for the Advancement of Colored People became an important vehicle for the emerging civil rights movement, one whose leaders and members endured many hardships as they spread their message across the country. As Inheritors of the Spirit reveals, Ovington's life stands as an example of moral courage and dedication to a noble cause. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

"By highlighting the life of a key figure in the NAACP Wedin has given us a welcome addition to the literature of that organization."—Library Journal

"In its densely researched, sensitively interpreted, and crisply written evocation of her subject's career, Professor Wedin's biography opens a wide window onto much of the inner life of the NAACP as it evolves from a virtual one-person show scripted by the incomparable (and sometimes insufferable) Du Bois through the unflappable stewardship of James Weldon Johnson and the manic operational brilliance of Walter White to become, in classic Weberian progression, a well-honed bureaucracy of lawyers, accountants, field secretaries, and lobbyists—and, overwhelmingly, of African Americans . . . a vibrant, valuable chronicle of an eighty-year dedication to economic, racial, and gender justice."—from the Foreword by David Levering Lewis

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The Complete Stories of Dorothy Parker

Manufacturer: Recorded Books, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
ASIN: 0788704435

Product Description

Few writers can match Dorothy Parker when she delivers wicket punch lines and drops sharply ironic phrases into place with an almost audible click. Her stories are delightful demonstrations of the social satire that earned her an acclaimed position in American literature.

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Walter White: Mr. NAACP
Kenneth Robert Janken
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

African-American & Black | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Political | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0807857807

Book Description

Walter White (1893-1955) was among the nation's preeminent champions of civil rights. With blond hair and blue eyes, he could "pass" as white even though he identified as African American, and his physical appearance allowed him to go undercover to investigate more than 40 lynchings and race riots in the years following World War I. As executive secretary of the NAACP from 1931 until his death in 1955, White promoted the Harlem Renaissance and led influential national campaigns against lynching, segregation in the military, and racism in Hollywood movies. In this first scholarly biography, Kenneth Robert Janken considers the man who embodied many contradictions. Walter White gained access to white elite culture, establishing friendships with Eleanor Roosevelt and numerous congressmen and Supreme Court justices, but he ultimately considered himself—and was considered by many—an organization man, "Mr. NAACP."

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