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The history of the black struggle for civil rights and political and economic equality in America is deeply tied to the strategies, agendas, and styles of black leaders. In this compelling work, Manning Marable examines different models of black leadership and the figures who embody them: from the integrationist approaches of Booker T. Washington and Harold Washington, to the nationlist separatism of Louis Farrakhan, and, finally, the democratic transformation championed by W. E. B. Du Bois. Marable’s analysis of all three models criticizes the deep conservatism of both integrationists and national separatists, and praises Du Bois’s radical democratic vision of linking racial equality with the struggle for political and economic liberty for all. This original account of black leadership in the United States reveals what is at stake in terms of politics, economics, and culture, both in the black community and in America at large.

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