
Free Radical
Ernest Chambers, Black Power, and the Politics of Race
Tekla Agbala Ali Johnson(Author)
Texas Tech Press,U.S.
Will be published approx. on 31. December 2012
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-0-89672-729-8 (ISBN)
Description
Amid the deadly racial violence of the 1960s, an unassuming student from a fundamentalist Christian home in Omaha emerged as a leader and nationally recognised black activist. Ernest Chambers, elected to the Nebraska State Legislature in 1970, eventually became one of the most influential legislators the state has ever known. As Chambers bids for re-election in 2012 to the office he held for thirty-eight years, Omaha native Tekla Agbala Ali Johnson illuminates his embattled career as a fiercely independent self-styled "defender of the downtrodden."
Tracing the growth of the Black Power Movement in Nebraska and throughout the U.S., Ali Johnson discovers its unprecedented emphasis on electoral politics. For the first time since Reconstruction, voters catapulted hundreds of African American community leaders into state and national political arenas. Special-interest groups and political machines would curb the success of aspiring African American politicians, just as urban renewal would erode their geographical and political bases, compelling the majority to join the Democratic or Republican parties. Chambers was one of the few not to capitulate.
In her revealing study of the man and those he represented, Ali Johnson portrays one intellectual's struggle alongside other African Americans to actualise their latent political power.
Tracing the growth of the Black Power Movement in Nebraska and throughout the U.S., Ali Johnson discovers its unprecedented emphasis on electoral politics. For the first time since Reconstruction, voters catapulted hundreds of African American community leaders into state and national political arenas. Special-interest groups and political machines would curb the success of aspiring African American politicians, just as urban renewal would erode their geographical and political bases, compelling the majority to join the Democratic or Republican parties. Chambers was one of the few not to capitulate.
In her revealing study of the man and those he represented, Ali Johnson portrays one intellectual's struggle alongside other African Americans to actualise their latent political power.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Texas
United States
Illustrations
22
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 165 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
456 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-89672-729-8 (9780896727298)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Tekla Agbala Ali Johnson, born in North Omaha, Nebraska, is assistant professor of history at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Quintard Taylor is the Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Professor of American History at the University of Washington.
Quintard Taylor is the Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Professor of American History at the University of Washington.