Book description
Barack Obama's presidential victory demonstrated unprecedented racial
progress on a national level. Not since the civil rights legislation of
the 1960s has the United States seen such remarkable advances. During
Obama's historic campaign, however, prominent African Americans voiced
concern about his candidacy, demonstrating a divided agenda among black
political leaders. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. changed
perceptions about the nature of African American leadership. In Yes We
Did?, Cynthia Fleming examines the expansion of black leadership from
grassroots to the national arena, beginning with Booker T. Washington
and W. E. B. DuBois and progressing through contemporary leaders
including Harold Ford Jr., Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson Jr., and
Barack Obama. She emphasizes socioeconomic status, female black
leadership, media influence, black conservatism, and generational
conflict. Fleming had unprecedented access to a wide range of activists,
including Carol Mosley Braun, Al Sharpton, and John Hope Franklin. She
deftly maps the history of black leadership in America, illuminating
both lingering disadvantages and obstacles that developed after the
civil rights movement. Among those interviewed were community activists
and scholars, as well as former freedom riders, sit-in activists, and
others who were intimately involved in the civil rights struggle and
close to Dr. King. Their personal accounts reflect the diverse
viewpoints of the black community and offer a new understanding of the
history of African American leadership, its current status, and its
uncertain future. Cynthia Griggs Fleming, professor of history at the
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is the author of Soon We Will Not
Cry: The Liberation of Ruby Doris Smith Robinson and In the Shadow of
Selma: The Continuing Struggle for Civil Rights in the Rural South.
