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Intro -- Contents -- Foreword by Henry Louis Gates Jr. -- Prologue: The Origins of the Black Intelligentsia -- 1. The Rise and Fall of Color Elitism among African Americans -- 2. Black Intelligentsia Leadership Patterns -- 3. Ideological Dynamics and the Making of the Intelligentsia -- 4. Black Elite Patterns in the Twenty-First Century -- Appendix: Class Attributes of Elite Strata -- Notes -- Analytical Bibliography -- Acknowledgments -- Index.

Drawing on his professional research into political leadership and intellectual development in African American society, as well as his personal roots in the social-gospel teachings of black churches and at Lincoln University (PA), the political scientist Martin Kilson explores how a modern African American intelligentsia developed in the face of institutionalized racism.

AbstractThe article evaluates Robert Putnam's discussion of two differing concepts of the role of the diversity perspective toward inter-ethnic/inter-racial relationships in American society since the 1960s—namely, the "contact theory" and the "conflict theory." The former was initially formulated by Harvard social psychologist Gordon Allport in The Nature of Prejudice (1954). Putnam's analysis—published in the comparative politics journal Scandinavian Political Studies (Vol. 30, No. 2, 2007)—favors the "conflict theory," which holds that diversity sharpens "us-against-them" inter-ethnic/inter-racial interactions. Putnam's view opposes diversity-influenced public policies. By contrast, "contact theory" holds that diversity erodes "us-against-them" interactions and thus eventually democratizes such interactions, and thereby American society generally. "Contact theory" influenced the NAACP-led civil-rights movement's quest for desegregation public policies during the 1950s, 1960s, and onward.

From the end of Reconstruction in the 1880s to the 1940s, the African American population confronted the complex issue of how to lead African Americans in an emergent industrial US nation-state system that applied rigid white supremacist practices in its interface with African Americans. Two generic types of modern ethnic group leadership are hypothesized: (1) the social organization type that focuses on the nuts & bolts of outfitting a group with agencies, mechanisms, networks, & institutions related to modern social development; & (2) the guidance or mobilization type, which focuses on the character of an ethnic group's status, citizenship rights, human rights, & honor in a modern nation-state society. The classic leadership contest from the 1890s to the 1940s between the leadership paradigms of Booker T. Washington & W. E. B. Du Bois is revisited in terms of the two generic types of modern ethnic group leadership. Efforts by neoconservatives today to revive the Washington leadership paradigm, which historically has been a distorted variant of the generic social organization type leadership, are critiqued. 10 References. Adapted from the source document.

An analysis of problems linked to black American ethnoradical politics considers the impact of such groups as Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam & Black Muslims on the future legitimacy of Afro-American leadership. Perceived as a threat by pragmatic-activist black leaders because of their popular appeal, flamboyancy, & ability to deliver catharsis, the radical black nationalist favors a black replacement for multiple facets of the unacceptable mainstream US culture. While the xenophobic Afrocentrist movement targets whites, it has exacerbated black-Jewish conflicts (eg, Khalid Muhammed's 1993 anti-Semitic diatribe). Since continued legitimacy of mainstream black leadership hinges on inclusive coalitions with other groups, tensions with the US-Jewish community must be defused. J. Sadler

The political maturing of African-American scholars & community leaders is traced. African Americans' quest to become part of mainstream US politics while maintaining identication with their homeland parallels similar efforts by other ethnic groups. The sociopolitical movements of Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, & others demonstrate that African Americans have witnessed & participated in their share of nationalist & ethnocentric movements, but the American Society of African Culture has yielded the most significant institutional impact because it has challenged the US government to consider black Americans for political appointments. Continuing obstacles that African Americans confront as they assume a transnational ethnicity are considered. M. Maguire

In response to Shelby Steele's contention ("The Memory of Enemies," Dissent, 1990, summer) that the opportunity structure in US society has allowed more social mobility & achievement than black Americans have taken advantage of, & that the lack of black mobility is due to dependence on a historical victim identity or "enemy-memory," it is argued that a racist legacy exists in the US, & that the Civil Rights Act has not created a color-blind society in which blacks can master mobility & achievement by individual initiative. In Shelby Steele Replies, Steele claims that his arguments have been mischaracterized & that racism & lack of achievement are two separate but interrelated problems that place the burden of educational development on the individual & the burden of the struggle against racism on the group. V. Wagener