Gates examines the central idea that fueled the civil rights
movement-- remove barriers to integration and 36 million blacks could
become productive and join the middle class-- and calls it a fallacy. Looking
at conventional assumptions about race, race identity and the great class gap
dividing the black community, Gates explores the question: are
blacks overall better off in ' 97 than they were in ' 67? Gates is
Professor of the Humanities and Chair of the Afro-American Studies department,
Harvard University, and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for
Afro-American Research.
a former activist in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC), the first black to run for the Georgia State Legislature
since reconstruction, and a former student of Martin Luther King, Jr. ,
measures the success of the civil rights movement and grapples with the
issues facing the black middle class as they become increasingly distanced from
the urban poor.
author and former Black Panther leader, explains what
would have happened to America had the Panthers' ideas for radically
transforming society succeeded. He compares being black in 1997 to being black
in 1967, weighs in on the Nation of Islam's doctrines and discusses the debate
between W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington over how best to lift all
blacks economically and socially.
joined the Black Panther Party during
the sixties, then went on to graduate summa cum laude from Yale Law
School. She explains why divisions of class within the black community were
ignored. She also analyzes the crisis in black leadership and the obligations
of today's 'Talented Tenth' of educated blacks to the black underclass.
became an icon of the Black Power Movement. She is a
lifelong member of the Communist Party and from that perspective, looks
back on the sixties' struggles and why "the movement crashed." She discusses
the choices that faced black activists at the time - such as pan-Africanism
and the Panthers' radical economic program - and evaluates the legacy of
each. She is a Professor of History of Consciousness at the University of
California, Santa Cruz and works with the Prisoner's Rights Movement and the
National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression.
led the 1997 White House review of affirmative
action programs. This interview offers his strong, thoughtful defense of
affirmative action in which he answers questions such as -- What are the
basic reasons for justifying affirmative action? Is there a moral cost in
making decisions about people based on race or gender? When should affirmative
action programs end? Edley is professor of law at Harvard Law School and
author of Not All Black and White: Affirmative Action, Race and American
Values.
founder of the Rainbow Coalition and Operation PUSH
(People United to Save Humanity), thinks the problems of the underclass are
two-fold: structural and behavioral. He advocates a restoration of values,
explains how capitalism can solve the structural economic inquality, and why
the class gap is bigger than the race gap for black Americans. Jackson, who
worked as one of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s lieutenants in the Southern
Christian Leadership Corps, has been fighting for the poor and dispossessed
since the day he joined a group of students sitting-in at a lunch counter in
Greensboro, North Carolina.
award-winning composer, arranger, publisher and
entrepreneur started his career as a jazz trumpeter when segregation was still
the law of the land. He was already a well-regarded producer/composer of pop
hits during the early days of the civil rights movement. Today, he is one of
the few African-Americans with real power in the entertainment industry. Jones
offers his views on gangster culture and its impact on black youth. He
describes surmounting the poverty of his childhood, taking charge of his own
business deals and why he's optimistic about the future of black America,
particularly its young people. Jones is Executive Producer of the urban talk
show, VIBE, and publisher of the magazine by the same name.
he is a professor and chair of the department of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach; chair of the Organization Us and the creator of Kwanzaa. Professor Karenga discusses the Mission Statement for the Million Man March/Day of Absence and stresses the need for African-Americans to build upon their traditions of social justice and collective community as a way to change the society at-large. Dr. Karenga is widely recognized as the father of Afrocentrism. He has written twelve books, including Introduction to Black Studies, Kawaida: A Communitarian African Philosophy, Selections from the Husia: Sacred Wisdom of Ancient Egypt, and Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family Community, and Culture.
a professor of Afro-American Studies and Philosophy of
Religion at Harvard University discusses with Gates the sense of moral
responsiblity for each other that needs to be fostered in the black community.
Describing the deeper sense of black community that existed in 1967, he explain
how it can be recovered and why there is "a profound crisis of black
leadership" in black communities. He has written eleven books including
Keeping Faith, Prophetic Fragments, The Future of the Race
(with Henry Louis Gates,Jr.), Breaking Bread (with bell hooks) and
Race Matters. His latest book is a series of interviews with
prominent African-Americans.
a professor of Afro-American Studies at Harvard
University and has advised the Clinton administration on social and public
policy issues. Wilson's interview includes a discussion of how the civil
rights movement benefited a small percentage of middle-class and educated
blacks; how the issues of lower-class blacks continue to be ignored; and why
the causes of black poverty are both structural and behavioral. Wilson's
books include The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and the Changing
American Institutions; The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the
Underclass and Public Policy; and When Work Disappears.
