Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century | 
| Author: Kevin K. Gaines
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
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Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 384047
Media: Paperback
Pages: 342
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0807845434
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.0496073
EAN: 9780807845431
ASIN: 0807845434
Publication Date: February 19, 1996
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Product Description
Amidst the violent racism prevalent at the turn of the twentieth century, African American cultural elites, struggling to articulate a positive black identity, developed a middle-class ideology of racial uplift. Insisting that they were truly representative of the race's potential, black elites espoused an ethos of self-help and service to the black masses and distinguished themselves from the black majority as agents of civilization; hence the phrase 'uplifting the race.' A central assumption of racial uplift ideology was that African Americans' material and moral progress would diminish white racism. But Kevin Gaines argues that, in its emphasis on class distinctions and patriarchal authority, racial uplift ideology was tied to pejorative notions of racial pathology and thus was limited as a force against white prejudice. Drawing on the work of W. E. B. Du Bois, Anna Julia Cooper, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Hubert H. Harrison, and others, Gaines focuses on the intersections between race and gender in both racial uplift ideology and black nationalist thought, showing that the meaning of uplift was intensely contested even among those who shared its aims. Ultimately, elite conceptions of the ideology retreated from more democratic visions of uplift as social advancement, leaving a legacy that narrows our conceptions of rights, citizenship, and social justice.
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| Customer Reviews:
Modern idealism for the African American Culture October 24, 2000
La-Shanda West (Homestead, Florida United States)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Kevin Gaines does a remarkable job in identify the problems that face many African Americans living in the Twentieth Century. His studies is focused around the Civil Right Era where you have powerful leaders involved with the "Black Freedom Movement." Noted key players are Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey. His arguements are based around the problems in the South and the violation of civil and human rights. The Federal and local (Southern) governments are the key institutions that supported the unjust treatment of African Americans for over many centuries. Gaines seem to argue that if there is a change in the way politics are incorporated in the poor black communities to help build a middle/working class society then the poverty rate would decrease and race would not be a barrier.
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