We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century

by Roderick D. Bush

Overview

An "Indispensable" Book of The Black World Today website

A fresh new look at the Black Power movement and its leaders

Much has been written about the Black Power movement in the United States. Most of this work, however, tends to focus on the personalities of the movement. In We Are Not What We Seem, Roderick D. Bush takes a fresh look at Black Power and other African American social movements with a specific emphasis on the role of the urban poor in the struggle for Black rights.

Bush traces the trajectory of African American social movements from the time Booker T. Washington to the present, providing an integrated discussion of class. He addresses questions crucial to any understanding of Black politics: Is the Black Power movement simply another version of the traditional American ethnic politics, or does it have wider social import? What role has the federal government played in implicitly grooming social conservatives like Louis Farrakhan to assume leadership positions as opposed to leftist, grassroots, class-oriented leaders? Bush avoids the traditional liberal and social democratic approaches in favor of a more universalistic perspective that offers new insights into the history of Black movements in the U.S.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814771464
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	03/01/2000
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	315
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Rod Bush is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at St. John's University and editor of The New Black Vote: Politics and Power in Four American Cities.

What People are Saying About This

Robin D.G. Kelley

A crucially important and incisive work on the Black Power movement, its aftermath and its antecedents. By not treating race and class as an 'either/or' proposition, Roderick D. Bush offers a new perspective on the class basis of antiracist and black nationalist movements. Bush has given us one of the most comprehensive analyses of the current crisis of Black leadership that I've read in a very long time, on par with Harold Cruse's classic Crisis of the Negro Intellectual and Cedric Robinson's Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. --Robin D. G. Kelley

From the Publisher

"This story of Black social movements in the U.S., as seen from the inside by a theoretically sophisticated and committed analyst, is mandatory reading."

-Immanuel Wallerstein,

"A crucially important and incisive work on the Black Power movement, its aftermath and its antecedents. By not treating race and class an an 'either/or' proposition, Rod Bush offers a new perspective on the class basis of antiracist and Black nationalist movements. Bush has given us one of the most comprehensive analyses of the current crisis of Black leadership that I've read in a very long time."

-Robin D. G. Kelley,

"In broad strokes, Bush takes readers from the early challenges to the accommodationism of Booker T. Washington through the tumultuous years of the 1960s."

-Choice,

"This story of Black social movements in the U.S., as seen from the inside by a theoretically sophisticated and committed analyst, is mandatory reading for those who don't know this story, which is most of us."

-Immanuel Wallerstein,

"A crucially important and incisive work on the Black Power movement, its aftermath and its antecedents. By not treating race and class as an 'either/or' proposition . . . Bush has given us one of the most comprehensive analyses of the current crisis of Black leadership that I've read in a very long time, on par with Harold Cruse's classic Crisis of the Negro Intellectual and Cedric Robinson's Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition."

-Robin D. G. Kelley

Editorial Reviews

Traces the trajectory of African American social movements from the time of Booker T. Washington to the present. Bush (sociology, St. John's U.) looks at Black Power and other African American social movements with an emphasis on the role of the urban poor in the struggle for Black rights. He looks at African American social movements in the "Age of Imperialism" from 1890-1914, the recomposition of the white-black alliance from the Great Depression to WWII, and the crisis of US hegemony and the transformation from Civil Rights to Black Liberation. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

"This story of Black social movements in the U.S., as seen from the inside by a theoretically sophisticated and committed analyst, is mandatory reading."

Immanuel Wallerstein

"A crucially important and incisive work on the Black Power movement, its aftermath and its antecedents. By not treating race and class an an 'either/or' proposition, Rod Bush offers a new perspective on the class basis of antiracist and Black nationalist movements. Bush has given us one of the most comprehensive analyses of the current crisis of Black leadership that I've read in a very long time."

Robin D. G. Kelley

"Rod Bush's We Are Not What We Seem is a wonderfully idiosyncratic tour through a plethora of twentieth-century African American movements."

The Journal of American History

"In broad strokes, Bush takes readers from the early challenges to the accommodationism of Booker T. Washington through the tumultuous years of the 1960s."

Choice

"This story of Black social movements in the U.S., as seen from the inside by a theoretically sophisticated and committed analyst, is mandatory reading."

-Immanuel Wallerstein

"In broad strokes, Bush takes readers from the early challenges to the accommodationism of Booker T. Washington through the tumultuous years of the 1960s."

-Choice

"A crucially important and incisive work on the Black Power movement, its aftermath and its antecedents. By not treating race and class an an 'either/or' proposition, Rod Bush offers a new perspective on the class basis of antiracist and Black nationalist movements. Bush has given us one of the most comprehensive analyses of the current crisis of Black leadership that I've read in a very long time."

-Robin D. G. Kelley

"Rod Bush's We Are Not What We Seem is a wonderfully idiosyncratic tour through a plethora of twentieth-century African American movements."

-The Journal of American History

From the Publisher