The NAACP in the Twenty-first Century

“The leadership was overly concerned with recognition from whites, a concern that helped prevent the organization from taking a confrontational stance. The program overly oriented to a middle-class agenda and not nearly strong enough to the kinds of economic issues that mean most to workingclass black people. [And] the organization [was] too centralized.” These views of the problems of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People are not those of a present-day critic, reflecting on the Association’s recent woes. They were formed by Ella Baker during her years as the NAACP’s assistant field secretary in 1941 and as National Director of Branches from 1943 to 1946, as summarized in Charles Payne’s book I’ve Got the Light of Freedom, published in 1995. Yet Baker’s assessment fits extraordinarily well with some of the issues that have called into question the viability and continued relevance of the NAACP as it faces its centennial in 2009

The Voting Rights Act and the Election of Nonwhite Officials

Voting Rights Act (VRA) is one of the most important—if not the most important—public policies developed over the last half century to increase access to the U.S. political system for people of color. The VRA also provides an important context for understanding the ascension of nonwhite groups into the elected leadership of the nation (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb 1984; Davidson and Grofman 1994; Menifield 2001; Mc-Clain and Stewart 2002; Segura and Bowler 2005; Bositis 2006). This essay assesses the present-day significance of the VRA for the political representation of communities of color by examining the implications of majority-minority districts and other key provisions in the VRA for the election of nonwhite officials in the beginning years of the twenty-first century

Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States

Brings together four reports commissioned between 1982 and 2000 that examine the history of African American Studies, its impact, and its institutionalization. Reviews Ford's grantmaking to African American Studies programs from 1982 to 2007

Racial and Ethnic Politics in America

In this paper I examine the conditions under which racial and ethnic groups in America express their group identities through political action. Toward this end, I review first the socio-economic status model of political and electoral participation. In the discussion of this model, I open up for consideration the much broader range of types of political participation possible in society. I then hypothesize that there are an enormous variety of stimuli possible which provoke group based electoral and political behavior, and based on the political participation model -- an alternative model introduced in Race and Ethnicity in Chicago Politics (Pinderhughes 1987) -- briefly discuss some of the factors which explain their existence. Finally, using Black political behavior as an example, I specify some of the ways in which extensive group based political mobilization has occurred in the U.S

DIVERSIDADE E SOLIDARIEDADE: uma introdução à pesquisa sobre opinião pública

<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="content-type"> Dianne Pinderhughes <span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;"><br style="font-weight: normal;"> <span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> O artigo introduz a literatura sobre opini&atilde;o<span style="font-weight: normal;"> p&uacute;blica afro-americana, apresentando as contribui&ccedil;&otilde;es<span style="font-weight: normal;"> desenvolvidas por cientistas pol&iacute;ticos negros, especialmente<span style="font-weight: normal;"> a partir dos anos 1980. A autora discute a quest&atilde;o da diversidade interna nas atitudes pol&iacute;ticas, ao mesmo tempo em que chama a aten&ccedil;&atilde;o para a import&acirc;ncia da identidade racial na configura&ccedil;&atilde;o das opini&otilde;es dos negros norte-americanos, em rela&ccedil;&atilde;o a t&oacute;picos, tais como Estado, partidos e lideran&ccedil;a pol&iacute;tica.<br style="font-weight: normal;"> <span style="font-weight: normal;"> PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Opini&atilde;o p&uacute;blica, afro-americanos, identifica&ccedil;&atilde;o racial,<span style="font-weight: normal;"> diversidade, heterogeneidade. DIVERSITY AND SOLIDARITY: an introduction to the public opinion poll <span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Dianne Pinderhughes The article introduces literature on Afro-American public opinion poll presenting the contributions developed by black political scientists, especially from the 80&rsquo;s on. The author discusses the internal diversity issue in political attitudes, calling the attention to the importance of the racial identity in shaping the Afro-Americans&rsquo; opinion as far as the State, parties and political leadership are concerned. KEYWORDS: Public poll, Afro-Americans, racial identification, diversity, and heterogeneity <br style="font-weight: normal;"> <span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Publica&ccedil;&atilde;o Online do Caderno CRH: <a href="http://www.cadernocrh.ufba.br/">http://www.cadernocrh.ufba.br </html