Why read We Have No Leaders?

Book cover of We Have No Leaders

Book description

This comprehensive study of African American politics since the civil rights era concludes that the black movement has been co-opted, marginalized, and almost wholly incorporated into mainstream institutions.

CHOICE 1997 Outstanding Academic Books

This is the first comprehensive study of African American politics from the end of the 1960s civil…

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Why read it?

1 author picked We Have No Leaders as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Marion Orr

Author

Robert C. Smith (1947-2023) was one of the most prolific political scientists who wrote about Black political leadership.

This book is a critical examination of national Black political leadership in the U.S. after the 1960s. Smith posits a thesis that after the Civil Rights Movement, Black Americans became incorporated into the Democratic Party, becoming a critical component of the party’s governing coalition. However, Smith maintains that Black political leadership also became much more mainstream, co-opted, and marginalized.

This book questions the extent to which Black Americans have made substantive policy gains since the 1960s and whether their incorporation into the…

From Marion's list on Black political leadership in the US.