Manning Marable - Beyond Black and White - From Civil Rights to Barack Obama (Radical Thinkers)

T he following essays, several of which have been revised for this collection, have been previously published: Black America in Search of Itself first appeared in The Progressive, vol. 55, no. 11 (November 1991). Race and Realignment in American Politics was published originally in Mike Davis, Fred Pfeil and Michael Sprinker, eds., The Year Left: An American Socialist Yearbook, vol. 1 (London: Verso, 1985). At the End of the Rainbow first appeared in Race and Class, vol. 34, no. 2 (OctoberDecember 1992). Race and Class in the US Presidential Election of 1992 was published originally in Race and Class, vol. 34, no. 3 (JanuaryMarch 1993). A shorter version of Politics, Personality and Protest in Harlem: The RangelPowell Congressional Race was published in The Village Voice, September 13, 1994. Clarence Thomas and the Crisis of Black Political Culture first appeared in an anthology edited by Toni Morrison, Race-ing Justice, En-Gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social Reality (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992). Blueprint for Black Studies was presented at a conference on African-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in April 1991, and was later published in The Black Scholar, vol. 22, no. 3 (Summer 1992). Black Studies, Multiculturalism and the Future of American Education first appeared in the JuneSeptember 1995 issue of Items, the newsletter of the Social Science Research Council, New York. Malcolm as Messiah: Cultural Myth versus Historical Reality first appeared in Cineaste, vol. 19, no. 4 (1993). Memory and Militancy in Transition: The 1993 March on Washington first appeared in Race and Class, vol. 35, no. 3 (JanuaryMarch 1994). An earlier version of Benjamin Chavis and the Crisis of Black Leadership was published in Blueprint for Social Justice, vol. 18, no. 2, October 1994. Black Intellectuals in Conflict first appeared in New Politics, vol. 5, no. 3 (Summer 1995). African-American Empowerment in the Face of Racism: The Political Aftermath of the Battle of Los Angeles first appeared in the Black Collegian, vol. 23, no. 1 (SeptemberOctober, 1992). Beyond Racial Identity Politics: Toward a Liberation Theory for Multicultural Democracy first appeared in Race and Class, vol. 35, no. 1 (JulySeptember 1993). The Divided Mind of Black America: Race, Ideology and Politics in the Post-Civil-Rights Era was written in the winter and spring of 1994 in collaboration with Leith Mullings, Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York Graduate School, and was published originally in Race and Class, vol. 36, no. 1 (JulySeptember 1994). History and Black Consciousness: The Political Culture of Black America was published in Monthly Review, vol. 47, no. 3 (JulyAugust 1995). Harlem and the Racial Imagination: Reflections on the Million Youth March first appeared in Souls, vol. 1, no. 1 (1999). The Political and Theoretical Contexts of the Changing Racial Terrain first appeared in Souls, vol. 4, no. 3 (2002). Reparations and the Politics of Black Consciousness first appeared in the Free Press (8 August 2002) under the title Reparations, Black Consciousness, and the Black Freedom Struggle. Katrinas Unnatural Disaster: A Tragedy of Black Suffering and White Denial first appeared in Souls, vol. 8, no. 1 (2006). Racializing Justice, Disenfranchising Lives: Toward an Anti-Racist Criminal Justice first appeared as the preface to an anthology edited by Manning Marable, Keesha Middlemass and Ian Steinberg, Racializing Justice, Disenfranchising Lives: The Racism, Criminal Justice and Law Reader (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). Blackness beyond Boundaries: Navigating the Political Economies of Global Inequality first appeared as the introduction to an anthology edited by Manning Marable and Vanessa Agard-Jones, Transnational Blackness: Navigating the Global Color Line (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). Barack Obama, the 2008 Presidential Election and the Prospects for a Post-Racial Politics first appeared in The Black Commentator, no. 306 (8 January 2009) under the title Racializing Obama: The Enigma of Post-Black Politics and Leadership.

The storm is rising against the privileged minority
of the earth, from which there is no shelter in isolation
or armament. The storm will not abate until a just distribution
of the fruits of the earth enables men everywhere to live in
dignity and human decency. The American Negro may be
the vanguard of a prolonged struggle that may change the shape
of the world, as billions of deprived shake and transform the
earth in their quest for life, liberty, and justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr.