Historian Rayford Logan was part of a circle of intellectuals at Howard University in the 1930s-1950s. In 1944, he gathered together essays by 15 prominent black intellectuals. The outspoken views expressed in the essays helped to set the agenda for the civil rights movement.

Historian Rayford Logan was part of a circle of intellectuals at Howard University in the 1930s-1950s. In 1944, he gathered together essays by 15 prominent black intellectuals. The outspoken views expressed in the essays helped to set the agenda for the civil rights movement.

Between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the end of World War I in 1918, African Americans experienced their nadir. The Betrayal of the Negro (originally published as The Negro in American Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877-1901 and subsequently expanded) is the only full-scale account to document with encyclopedic research this neglected phase in American history. The author examines every aspect of our country's post-Reconstruction retreat from equality: the economic factors, the Supreme Court decisions, Booker T. Washington and his "Era of Compromise," and, in a unique...