Racial Imagination and the American Dream

ISBN-13: 9781032404660 / Twarda / 2023 / 176 str.

USA) Henry Charles P. (University of California at Berkeley

Opis

This book considers the American dream from the perspective of three of its most successful African American advocates - Ralph Bunche, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama - examining their self-perception in relation to that dream and the effects of their achievements on societal perceptions of the American dream and Blacks themselves.

Recenzje

"What is the relationship between racial identity and the American Dream? 　Can the Dream be reimagined as a radical democratic project to create a racially just and inclusive society? This question haunts three iconic Black leaders — Ralph Bunche, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Barack Obama — each of whom sought to democratize the American Dream. Charles Henry’s superb and eloquent book casts a spotlight on a dilemma at the heart of American society, and makes a clarion call for moral reparations as the path toward restorative racial justice."

 - Ambassador John Shattuck, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

　　　

"Bunche, King, and Obama are not only three Black Nobel Peace Prize laureates; they are three great Americans who strode across the world stage with wisdom and dignity. In Racial Imagination and the American Dream Charles P. Henry brilliantly links their lives, their accomplishments, and their moral leadership with the struggle for racial equality both here and abroad. A thought-provoking and always insightful analysis of America’s evolving creed."

 - Professor Kal Raustiala, author of The Absolutely Indispensable Man: Ralph Bunche, the Nations, and the Fight to End Empire

 

"Charles Henry’s Racial Imagination and the American Dream: The Peacemaker, the Prophet and
the Politician explores the conceptions for political reform by some of the most creative
political thinkers of the last century. A biographer of Bunche, a scholar of Obama’s presidency
and student of King, Henry examines the ways in which Black American life has been shaped by
these leaders. Starting with Derrick Bell’s invention of critical race theory, Henry offers a
comprehensive analysis of the complex policies that have been developed to change African
Americans’ racial status quo, concluding with the challenges of and possibilities for reparations."

 - Dianne Pinderhughes, Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.　

Spis treści

1. Introduction 2. Ralph Bunche: A Worldview of Race 3. King’s Dream 4. Barack Obama: Reclaiming the American Dream 5. American Exceptionalism: The American Dream Exported 6. Reimagining Racial Reparations

O autorze

Charles P. Henry is Professor Emeritus of African American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, USA, and Chair of the Board of the Center for Victims of Torture. He is the author/editor of nine books including Black Studies and the Democratization of American Higher Education and Long Overdue: The Politics of Racial Reparations, the editor of Foreign Policy and the Black (Inter)national Interest, and the co-editor of The Obama Phenomenon: Toward a Multiracial Democracy.