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Black Community Studies (series) |
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See also books on Civil Rights and Black history
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This monumental work is a classic study of the black "aristocracy" which developed in the United States in the years following Reconstruction. Every American city had a small, self-aware, and active black elite, who felt it was their duty to set the standard for the less fortunate members of their race and to lead their communities by example. (more …) 2000, 464 pages, 64 illustrations |
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By the same author: |
This deeply researched, clearly written book is a history of black society and its relations with whites in the Bahamas from the close of the American Revolution to emancipation. (more …) 1999, 208 pages, illustrations |
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Black Savannah focuses upon efforts of African Americans, free and slave, who worked together to establish and maintain a variety of religious, social, and cultural institutions, to carve out niches in the larger economy, and to form cohesive black families in a key city of the Old South. 1996, 232 pages |
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Because of its large free black population, Charleston provided a case study of black social class stratification and social mobility even before the Civil War. Reconstruction only emphasized that stratification, and Powers examines in detail the aspirations and concessions that shaped the lives of the newly-freed blacks. 1994, 384 pages |
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This pioneering work explores race and the social caste system in an atypical northern environment over a very broad time span. Most effectively, it challenges our simplistic notions of hierarchy as they pertain to race. 1994, 216 pages |
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Written as a "reclamation" of a long-ignored substratum of our society, Ambiguous Lives is more than the story of one family—it is a well-researched and fascinating profile of America, its race and gender relations, and its complex cultural weave. 1992 Myers Center Outstanding Book on Human Rights 1992, 304 pages |
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Since its founding, Nashville has been a center of black urban culture in the Upper South. Blacks—slave and free—made up 20 percent of Fort Nashborough's settlers in 1779. From these early years through the Civil War, a growing black community in Nashville, led by a small group of black elites, quietly built the foundations of a future society, developing schools, churches, and businesses. The Civil War brought new freedoms and challenges as the black population of Nashville increased and as black elites found themselves able—even obliged—to act more openly. To establish a more stable and prosperous African-American community, the elites found that they had to work within a system bound to the interests of whites. But the aims of this elite did not always coincide with those of the black community at large. By 1930, younger blacks, in particular, were moving towards protest and confrontation. As democratization and higher education spread, the lines distinguishing Nashville's black elite became blurred. Bobby L. Lovett presents a complex analysis of black experience in Nashville during the years between 1780 and 1930, exploring the impact of civil rights, education, politics, religion, business, and neighborhood development on a particular African-American community. This study of black Nashville examines lives lived within a web of shifting alliances and interests—the choices made, the difficulties overcome. Fifteen years in the making, illustrated with maps and photographs, this work is the first detailed study of any of Tennessee's major urban black communities. Lovett here collects, organizes, and interprets a large, rich body of data, making this material newly accessible to all interested in the black urban experience. Bobby L. Lovett is a professor of history and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Tennessee State University. His articles and reviews have been published widely in such journals as Tennessee Historical Quarterly and the Journal of Southern History. Together with L. T. Wynn, he edited the book, Profiles of African Americans in Tennessee. 1999, 320 pages |
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In his long-awaited study, John Graves examines the influences of the established agrarian culture on the developing racial practices of the urban centers in Arkansas following the Civil War. Despite terrible challenges to their newfound freedom, many blacks living in the towns were able to gain prominence as doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and political leaders. "I found the book full of welcome innovations and overdue revisions in [Arkansas's] history. I think it fills a need long felt." —C. Vann Woodward 1991 Arkansiana Award 1990, 152 pages |
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