Description
Book SynopsisHistorical studies of white racial thought focus exclusively on white ideas about the Negroes. Bay''s study is the first to examine the reverse -- black ideas about whites, and, consequently, black understandings of race and racial categories. Bay examines African-American ideas about white racial character and destiny in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In examining black racial thought, this work also explores the extent to which black Americans accepted or rejected 19th century notions about innate racial characteristics.
Trade ReviewThis is a meticulous and thought-provoking study of a hitherto neglected topic. It will deservedly take its place alongside the best recent scholarship on the enduring problem of race in American history * American Nineteenth Century History *
An important and timely investigation of African American conceptions of race from the Revolutionary era to the 1920s ... Its scope is also considerably broader than just a consideration of African American ideas about whites, the author having much to say about white racism, self-conceptions of black identity, and race relations in general * American Nineteenth Century History *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: 1. Desegregating American Racial Thought 2. Overview Part I: White People in Black Ethnology Chapter 1: "Of One Blood God Created All The Nations Of Men": African-Americans Respond to the Rise of Ideological Racism, 1789-1830 Chapter 2: The Redeemer Race and the Angry Saxon: Race, Gender, and White People in Antebellum Black Ethnology Chapter 3: "What Shall We Do With The White People?": Whites in Postbellum Black Thought Part II: The Racial Thought of the Slaves Introduction to Part II Chapter 4: "Us Is Human Flesh": The Racial Thought of the Slaves Chapter 5: "Devils and Good People Walking De Road At De Same Time": White People in Black Folk Thought Part III: New Negroes, New Whites: Black Racial Thought in the Twentieth Century Chapter 6: "A New Negro For A New Country": Black Racial Ideology, 1900-1925 Conclusion Notes Index
