by Manning Marable

In a powerful book that belongs next to Cornel West's bestselling Race Matters, African American intellectual Manning Marable examines the role of black leadership.

The history of the black struggle for civil rights and political and economic equality in America is deeply tied to the strategies, agendas, and styles of black leaders. In this compelling work, Manning Marable presents thought-provoking portraits of some of this century's most vital black leaders, delving into significant but little-studied aspects of their careers.

At the heart of the book are probing examinations of four leaders whose legacies speak to the challenges of race, class, and power: Booker T. Washington's conservative strategy of accommodation to segregation, Harold Washington's failure to uproot Chicago's political machine, the nationalist separatism of Louis Farrakhan, and the democratic transformation championed by W.E.B. Du Bois. Cogently argued and lucidly written, Black Leadership goes beyond the rhetoric of racial politics and renews the possibility of lasting cultural change throughout American society.