A History of Race Relations Social Science

This essay argues that the inclusion of white women, African Americans, Asian Americans, and American Indians into historiography is a fairly recent development ; and that the aforementioned development, which did not begin until the 1960s, has resulted in rigorous investigation into the racial thought of Franz Uri Boas, Robert Ezra Park, and Gunnar Myrdal and a hot debate in reference to their significance and influence on today\u27s social sciences. Furthermore, the integration of African American history into the historiography of race relations social science has given impetus to the movement towards making American intellectual history more inclusive

[Review of] David Levering Lewis. W.E.B. DuBois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919

In a stunning exhibition of biographical craftsmanship, David Levering Lewis narrates, for the years between 1868 and 1919, both the spectacular achievements -- and their import for intellectual life in our own times -- and the equally significant failings of one of the most important American intellectuals of the twentieth century. Lewis\u27s erudite tome supercedes all of the previous biographical treatments of DuBois and will doubtlessly require an equally Herculean effort to match this phenomenal work. Indeed, the awesome task of concluding the latter part of DuBois\u27s long, controversial, and complex life will be exhaustively challenging. Since any exhaustive review of Lewis\u27s work would require much greater space, I will confine my comments to an adumbration of the import of DuBois\u27s thought for ethnicity and gender theories

[Review of] George M. Fredrickson. Black Liberation: A Comparative History of Black Ideologies in the United States and South Africa

George M. Fredrickson, Edgar E. Robinson Professor of United States History at Stanford University, has written a magisterial volume that complements his earlier explorations in his highly acclaimed White Supremacy and in some of his major essays in a collection, entitled The Arrogance of Race. Yet, unlike the earlier works, which compare the predominant white racism and ethnocentrism in race relations in the United States and the Union of South Africa, Black Liberation focuses on the political ideologies of “organic” African American and Black South African intellectuals. Fredrickson, to my mind, demonstrates convincingly that historically the ideology of “color-blind universalism” has been both more potent and effective -- in more cases than not-- in countering the overt claims and actions of white supremacists in both countries than “racially exclusive nationalism.

[Review of] James B. McKee. Sociology and the Race Problem: The Failure of a Perspective

In his sweeping study of the treatment of African Americans in American sociology from the 1920s until the 1960s, James B. McKee, a professor emeritus of sociology at Michigan State University, concludes that sociologists need to revive an older democratic commitment to speak to a larger public that includes and cuts across the conflicting racial identities whose fates are inexorably bound together in the same historical struggles (366-7)

Rethinking Race: Franz Boas and His Contemporaries

In this thought-provoking reexamination of the history of racial science Vernon J. Williams argues that all current theories of race and race relations can be understood as extensions of or reactions to the theories formulated during the first half of the twentieth century. Williams explores these theories in a carefully crafted analysis of Franz Boas and his influence upon his contemporaries, especially W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, George W. Ellis, and Robert E. Park. Historians have long recognized the monumental role Franz Boas played in eviscerating the racist worldview that prevailed in the American social sciences. Williams reconsiders the standard portrait of Boas and offers a new understanding of a man who never fully escaped the racist assumptions of 19th-century anthropology but nevertheless successfully argued that African Americans could assimilate into American society and that the chief obstacle facing them was not heredity but the prejudice of white America. He characterizes Boas as a complex and conflicted man who held ambiguous ideas about racial equality. -- American Historical Review Contributes significantly to a fuller understanding of Boas\u27s impact on racial thinking, and it offers new insights into the changing racial views of social scientists in the formative period from 1896 to 1943. -- American Historical Review This is the first book to detail how Boas also worked closely with many of the same African-American intellectuals to shape major trends in American anthropology. -- American Journal of Sociology Williams enlightens the reader as to the gulf that still remains between the myths that are utilized to support claims of African American inferiority and the true complexity of this topic as revealed by scholars like Franz Boas. -- Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences Williams has done a superb job of discussing the impact of Franz Boas\u27 impact on the racial thinking of his white anthropological contemporaries. . . . a most valuable contribution to the past and continuing debate of the importance of race in American society. -- Arkansas Historical Quarterly Offers a thoughtful historical reflection on how and why these issues continue to affect our personal and national perceptions and out often uncomfortable attempts to discuss race in American life. -- Historian A timely and thoughtful re-examination of a formative period in the history of American social science and race relations. -- Southern Historian A continuation of the author\u27s pioneering work on the emergence of the modern cultural interpretation of race in America. -- The Journal of Southern Historyhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_biological_and_physical_anthropology/1000/thumbnail.jp

[Review of] Dickson D. Bruce, Jr. Archibald Grimke: Portrait of a Black Independent

In this superb work which is the first full-scale biography of a man who played a major role in the drama that is African American history, Dickson D. Bruce, Jr. emerges as both a master of archival detective work and story-telling. This professor of history at the University of California at Irvine depicts lucidly why Grimké, though not of the stature of Booker T. Washington or W.E.B. DuBois, ”was a major figure of his time and that his thought and actions were considered of great significance by his contemporaries. His life,” Bruce sums up quite aptly, ”was a testimony to his efforts to confront both the demands and limitations posed by the racist world in which he had to live“

Book Review: The Arrogance of Race: Historical Perspectives on Slavery, Racism, and Social Inequality

The Arrogance of Race is George M. Fredrick son’s latest work, and it is a profound one. This series of articles, many of which have been published previously, was written over a span of some 20 years and represents the mature reflections of one of this country’s leading intellectual historians. The work should be read by all serious students of race and racism

[Review of] Kenneth Robert Janken. Rayford W. Logan and the Dilemma of the African-American Intellectual

In this superb reconstruction of the life of Rayford W. Logan, Kenneth Robert Janken, an assistant professor of African American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, draws on his protagonist\u27s somewhat tormented life to document the veracity of John Hope Franklin\u27s thesis that, it was the American Negro scholar\u27s dilemma to be obligated constantly to challenge the notion of black inferiority”. Put another way, despite Logan\u27s credentials -- he held a Ph.D. from Harvard University in history; wrote twelve books, including the classic, The Betrayal of the Negro; edited several others, among them, What the Negro Wants; and penned hundreds of scholarly articles -- his racial identity negated all of his assets. For a person who believed that he was different from most other African Americans, the snubs of the white establishment were extremely disconcerting. Yet time and again, Janken reminds us, Logan sought its [white academia\u27s] approval