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?

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…

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