The Black Intellectual Tradition by Derrick P. Alridge

This failure to engage deeply and honestly with King's writings allows him to be conscripted into political projects he would not endorse, including the pernicious form of 'color blindness' that insists, amid glaring race-based injustice, that racism has been overcome. On this view, King marshaled lofty rhetoric to help redeem the ideas of universal (white) heroes, but produced little original thought. In To Shape a New World, Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry write that the marginalization of King's ideas reflects a romantic, consensus history that renders the civil rights movement inherently conservative-an effort not at radical reform but at 'living up to' enduring ideals laid down by the nation's founders. But despite his stature, the significance of King's writings and political thought remains underappreciated. On the fiftieth anniversary of King's assassination, the man and his activism are as close to public consciousness as ever.

Martin Luther King, Jr., may be America's most revered political figure, commemorated in statues, celebrations, and street names around the world. Evans, Aaron David Gresson III, Claudrena N. Bynum, Jeffrey Lamar Coleman, Pero Gaglo Dagbovie, Stephanie Y. Expansive in scope and interdisciplinary in practice, The Black Intellectual Tradition delves into the ideas that animated a people's striving for full participation in American life.

Throughout, contributors engage with important ideas ranging from the consideration of gender within the tradition, to intellectual products generated outside the intelligentsia, to the ongoing relationship between thought and concrete effort in the quest for liberation. and the Diaspora, the essays explore the full landscape of the Black intellectual tradition. By including both women's and men's perspectives from the U.S. This volume presents essays on the diverse thought behind the fight for racial justice as developed by African American artists and intellectuals performers and protest activists institutions and organizations and educators and religious leaders. Considering the development and ongoing influence of Black thought From 1900 to the present, people of African descent living in the United States have drawn on homegrown and diasporic minds to create a Black intellectual tradition engaged with ideas on race, racial oppression, and the world.

The Black Intellectual Tradition by Derrick P. Alridge