Table of Contents

Political Theorizing in Black: An Introduction Melvin L. Rogers and Jack Turner
1    Phillis Wheatley and the Rhetoric of Politics and Race Vincent Carretta
2    David Walker: Citizenship, Judgment, Freedom, and Solidarity Melvin L. Rogers
3    Martin Delany’s Two Principles, the Argument for Emigration, and Revolutionary Black Nationalism Robert Gooding-Williams
4    Harriet Jacobs: Prisoner of Hope Nick Bromell
5    Frederick Douglass: Nonsovereign Freedom and the Plurality of Political Resistance Sharon R. Krause
6    Alexander Crummell’s Three Visions of Black Nationalism Frank M. Kirkland
7    Booker T. Washington and the Politics of Deception Desmond Jagmohan
8    Anna Julia Cooper: Radical Relationality and the Ethics of Interdependence
Carol Wayne White

9    Ida B. Wells on Racial Criminalization Naomi Murakawa
10    W. E. B. Du Bois: Afro-modernism, Expressivism, and the Curse of Centrality Paul C. Taylor
11    Marcus Garvey: The Black Prince? Michael Dawson
12    A. Philip Randolph: Radicalizing Rights at the Intersection of Class and Race Michael McCann
13    Zora Neale Hurston’s Radical Individualism Farah Jasmine Griffin
14    George S. Schuyler: Post-Souls Satirist Jeffrey B. Ferguson
15    C. L. R. James: Race, Revolution, and Black Liberation Anthony Bogues
16    Langston Hughes’s Ambivalent Political Expressivism Jason Frank
17    Thurgood Marshall: The Legacy and Limits of Equality under the Law Daniel Moak
18    Richard Wright: Realizing the Promise of the West Tommie Shelby
19    Bayard Rustin: Between Democratic Theory and Black Political Thought George Shulman
20    Ralph Ellison: Democratic Theorist Danielle Allen
21    James Baldwin: Democracy between Nihilism and Hope John E. Drabinski
22    Malcolm X: Dispatches on Racial Cruelty Nikhil Pal Singh
23    Martin Luther King: Strategist of Force David L. Chappell
24    Toni Morrison and the Fugitives’ Democracy Lawrie Balfour
25    Audre Lorde’s Politics of Difference Jack Turner
26    Stokely Carmichael and the Longing for Black Liberation: Black Power and Beyond Brandon M. Terry
27    Huey P. Newton and the Last Days of the Black Colony Cedric G. Johnson
28    Angela Y. Davis: Abolitionism, Democracy, Freedom Neil Roberts
29    Clarence Thomas: Race Pessimism and Black Capitalism Corey Robin
30    Cornel West and the Black Prophetic Tradition Mark D. Wood
Acknowledgments
Index
Contributors
 

About the Author

Melvin L. Rogers is associate professor of political science at Brown University. He is the author of The Undiscovered Dewey: Religion, Morality, and the Ethos of Democracy. Jack Turner is associate professor of political science at the University of Washington. He is the author of Awakening to Race: Individualism and Social Consciousness in America.
 

Reviews

"The book is a series of essays on the luminaries of African American political thought, across the history of the United States, by some of the most impressive scholars currently working. It is as close to a comprehensive overview of the African American political tradition as I’ve read, with chapters on figures from Phillis Wheatley and David Walker (two of the most important Black political thinkers of the early American republic) to Angela Davis and Clarence Thomas."
*The New York Times*

"Melvin Rogers’s and Jack Turner’s magisterial volume African American Political Thought comprises thirty essays on thirty different thinkers, each grappling with a shared set of questions and themes. . . . As 'collected history,' African American Political Thought offers a rich point from which to begin. Transfiguring the history of American political thought and democratic political theory, the volume proposes a canon of political thought that might itself be a starting point for democratic politics. . . . What they have achieved here does not only augment our existing canons, but works to transform those canons, and indeed the project of canon formation itself."
*Comparative Political Theory*

"For those wishing to learn more about the broader significance of black social-political thought . . . African American Political Thought: A Collected History is the go-to volume. . . . All of the thirty essays in African American Political Thought generate original scholarship and insights . . . all are invaluable sources for future scholarship on these important political thinkers’ contributions to political theory. Overall, this collected history works to reshape understandings of politics, history, culture, economics, institutions, social relations, and human beings in the United States by adding missing political theorists’ voices and views and illustrating problems with some of the dominant political theorists’ voices and views."
*Ethnic and Racial Studies*

"African American Political Thought, co-edited by Brown political scientist Melvin Rogers, reveals the outsize impact many Black thinkers, from Frederick Douglass to Angela Davis, have had on American society."
*Brown University (News from Brown)*

"Melvin Rogers’s and Jack Turner’s highly anticipated volume African American Political Thought: A Collected History promises to transform how we read and teach the history of Black political thought. An impressive collection, it fills large gaps in our understanding of this tradition and sets a new foundation for further research... The volume sets a new standard for study of African American political thought and makes a persuasive case for the tradition’s important contributions to political theory broadly."
*European Journal of Political Theory*

“For far too long, mainstream white American political theorists, whether in political science or political philosophy, have gotten away with the construction of a Jim Crow canon for which black thinkers are separate, unequal, and invisible. This groundbreaking and comprehensive overview of the African American political tradition should henceforth make such intellectual ghettoization impossible.”
*Charles W. Mills, The City University of New York*

“African American Political Thought should become an instant classic. So much to mine here. So many lines of inquiry to follow. Rogers and Turner have masterfully curated a collection of essays that will guide the field of African American political thought for generations. The study of American political thought will never be the same.”
*Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Princeton University*

“This book is an essential intervention in political theory and expands the notion of the canon of American political thought in ways that are both necessary and profound. Herein we begin to understand the richness of the legacies of politics reasoned from margin to center and the critical impact that can have on conceptions of democracy and justice. A must-read for those interested in understanding American politics and seriously engaging political theory.”
*Deva Woodly, The New School*

"Rogers and Turner have assembled a collection of African American political thought covering a stunning range of time and ideas... Given its scope, the book maintains a sense of continuity through a plethora of resonances between its chapters. The collection boasts a variety of interpretative approaches and scales of analysis and is notable for its attention to a range of rhetorical strategies and expressive genres: sermons, slave narratives, satire, Supreme Court opinions... The time and care Rogers and Turner invested in this project from its conception in 2007 and compilation over 10 years is evident in its comprehensiveness and thorough introduction. The credentials of the contributors to this collection are astonishing and the oeuvre of each in their own right is worth reading further."
*MAKE Literary Magazine*