The Shaping Of Black America

In a triumphant companion volume to his epochal Before the Mayflower, Bennett renders the African American experience chronologically, telling its story from a developmental perspective. A bold and literate work demonstrating "that blacks lived in a different time and different reality in this country".

The black experience in America-- starting from its origins in western Africa up to the present day-- is examined in this seminal study from a prominent African American figure. The entire historical timeline of African Americans is addressed, from the Colonial period through the civil rights upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. The most recent scholarship on the geographic, social, economic, and cultural journeys of African Americans, together with vivid portraits of key black leaders, complete this comprehensive reference.

"This new collection of essays and speeches is addressed to the thrust of black people for political, economic and cultural power--the one inescapable social phenomenon of our times. Bennett's theme is that this thrust constitutes a total challenge to blacks and whites, and to black and white institutions. The book explores the political, economic and cultural implications of this challenge and suggests radical alternatives and strategies for the black community. The challenge of blackness is seen as more than a surface struggle over 'integration'--it emerges to question the fundamentals of American society"--Book jacket flap.

A developmental history of the African-American struggle for autonomy and power discusses black slaves and white indentured servants, the black founding fathers, the relationship between African-Americans and native Americans, and other issues.

In 1865, the Cleveland Leader boasted that ''an indication of the civilized spirit of the city of Cleveland is found in the fact that colored children attend our schools, colored people are permitted to attend all public lectures and public affairs where the fashion and culture of the city congregate, and nobody is offended.'' Yet, by 1915, the Central Avenue district of town, with its cheap lodging houses, deteriorating homes, and vice, housed a majority of the black population under conditions that were decidedly inferior to those of most of the rest of the city. Tracing the development of Cleveland's black community from its antebellum beginnings to the end of the 1920s, Kenneth Kusmer systematically surveys and analyzes the emergence of the ghetto in the city where, prior to 1870, blacks were ''almost equal'' to whites. This volume deals in a comprehensive way with more aspects of black life - economic, political, social, and cultural - than any previous study of an urban community and presents the most detailed analysis of black occupations available. It is also the first work to make extensive use of manuscript collections of local black leaders and organizations. Of particular value is the comparative framework of the study. Kusmer compares the position of blacks in the social order with that of immigrants and native whites and places the development of the ghetto within the context of urban history. In addition, by contrasting Cleveland with other major cities, such as New York, Chicago, and Boston, Kusmer shows that there were important differences among black communities, especially before 1915, and proves that the causes and effects of the emergence of black ghettos are more complex historical problems than previously recognized. The consolidation of Cleveland's ghetto took over fifty years, and it left the average black citizen more isolated from the general life of the urban community than ever before. Yet, ironically, Kusmer concludes, it was this very isolation, and the sense of unique goals and needs that it fostered, that helped unify the black citizenry and provided the practical basis for the future struggle against racism in all its manifestations.''Kenneth L. Kusmer has written the best book yet on the formation of a black urban ghetto. It stands as a tribute to the blend of urban and Afro-American history.''--Howard P. Chudacoff, American Historical Review ''What makes Kusmer stand out among books on blacks in the urban North is the breadth and sophistication with which he conceptualizes his study. . . . The grace and intelligence of Kusmer make his book the single best study of the shaping of modern black ghettos. . . . Should be greeted warmly by historians of blacks and of urban America.''--Nancy Weiss, Reviews in American History ''Drawing upon a variety of statistical and literary primary sources . . . Kusmer presents a richly documented case study. His felicitously lucid and comprehensive analysis of the growth of one black ghetto promises to provide a model for future historians of the second major chapter in the Afro-American experience. In my view, Kusmer's multifaceted historical analysis of black Cleveland represents the finest case study of an urban black community to appear in the past decade.''--Marion Kilson, Journal of Interdisciplinary History ''Instead of fixing upon the pathological aspects of the ghetto or the racial discriminations of the white majority he finds his unifying theme in the leadership and decision0making within the black community. This is a richly detailed and thoughtfully constructed book.''--Louis R. Harlan, Journal of American History