Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part I – Scholarship and Education
1. African American Intellectual History: The Past as a Porthole into the Present and Future of the Field — Pero Gaglo Dagbovie
2. Afrocentricity and Autobiography: Historiographical Interventions Into Black Intellectual Traditions — Aaron David Gresson
Part II – Arts and Letters
3. Singing is Swinging: The Soul Force of Twentieth‑Century Black Protest Music — Jeffrey Lamar Coleman
4. The Post–Civil Rights Era and the Rise of Contemporary Novels of Slavery — Venetria K. Patton
5. Letters to Our Daughters: Black Women’s Memoirs as Epistles of Human Rights, Healing, and Inner Peace — Stephanie Y. Evans
Part III – Social Activism and Institutions
6. Into The Kpanguima: Questing for the Roots of Womanism in West African Women’s Social and Spiritual Formations — Layli Maparyan
7. New Negro Messengers in Dixie: James Ivy, Thomas Dabney, and Black Cultural Criticism in the Postwar US South, 1919–1930 — Claudrena N. Harold
8. Tackling the Talented Tenth: Black Greek‑Lettered Organizations and the Black New South — Maurice J. Hobson
Part IV – Identity and Ideology
9. A New Afrikan Nation in the Western Hemisphere: Black Power, the Republic of New Afrika, and the Pursuit of Independence — Edward Onaci
10. “A Certain Bond be Tween the Colored Peoples”: Internationalism and the Black Intellectual Tradition — Keisha N. Blain
11. Black Conservative Dissent — La Tasha B. Levy
12. Postracialism and its Discontents: Barack Obama and the New “American Dilemma” — Zebulon V. Miletsky
End Matter
Contributors
Index

"From 1900 to the present, people of African descent living in the United States have drawn on homegrown and diasporic minds to create a Black intellectual tradition engaged with ideas on race, racial oppression, and the world. This volume presents essays on the diverse thought behind the fight for racial justice as developed by African American artists and intellectuals; performers and protest activists; institutions and organizations; and educators and religious leaders. By including both women's and men's perspectives from the U.S. and the Diaspora, the essays explore the full landscape of the Black intellectual tradition. Throughout, contributors engage with important ideas ranging from the consideration of gender within the tradition, to intellectual products generated outside the intelligentsia, to the ongoing relationship between thought and concrete effort in the quest for liberation"-- Provided by publisher.