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Barack Obama and Black Blame: Authenticity, Audience and Audaciousness -- Barack Obama, Patton's Army, and Patriotic Whiteness -- Barack Obama's More Perfect Union -- An Officer and Two Gentlemen: The Great Beer Summit of 2009

Black Nationalism is one of the oldest and most enduring ideological constructs developed by African Americans to make sense of their social and political worlds. In Dreaming Blackness , Melanye T. Price explores the current understandings of Black Nationalism among African Americans, providing a balanced and critical view of today?s black political agenda. She argues that Black Nationalism continues to enjoy moderate levels of support by most black citizens but has a more difficult time gaining a larger stronghold because of increasing diversity among blacks and a growing emphasis on individu

In Dreaming Blackness, I had two major goals. First, I hoped to elucidate how changes in the American racial landscape have impacted African American support for black nationalism. To this end, I used a mixed methodological approach that included both statistical and qualitative analysis and allowed me to make claims based on a national cross section of African Americans and on more intimate discussions in smaller groups. Second, I wanted to ground my arguments in a robust discussion of African American political thought. This would ensure that my hypotheses and findings were resonant with a longitudinal understanding of how black nationalist ideology is characterized. Robert Gooding-Williams, with some caveats, suggests that I have accomplished these goals. I now address his two areas of concern related to evolving definitions of black nationalism and possible alternative interpretations, and I conclude by addressing our differing impressions of the future viability of this ideological option.

In this book, Robert Gooding-Williams uses the seminal work of W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folks (1903) to outline Du Bois' dominant influence in defining the boundaries of black politics. Du Bois' statement about the color line, still quoted more than a century after its publication, is just one example of the enduring impact of Souls and other works on the ways in which black politics scholars conceptualize, measure, and make prescriptions for black political progress. However, his import as a dominant voice in black political thought belies the fact that there was ideological and fervent opposition to his view concerning how blacks could overcome racial oppression. Unlike Du Bois, however, many of those opponents are less known or simply ignored by contemporary black scholars.

Melanye T. Price responds to Robert Gooding-Williams' review of her book, "Dreaming Blackness: Black Nationalism and African American Public Opinion.". Adapted from the source document.