Racial Uplift and American Music, 1878-1943 traces the career of racial uplift ideology as a factor in elite African Americans' embrace of classical music around the turn of the previous century, from the collapse of Reconstruction to the death of composer/conductor R. Nathaniel Dett, whose music epitomized -uplift.-

After Reconstruction many black leaders had retreated from emphasizing -inalienable rights- to a narrower rationale for equality and inclusion: they now sought to rehabilitate the race's image by stressing class distinctions, respectable middle-class behavior, and...