The African-American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Country

by Henry Louis Gates Jr., Cornel West

A bold new approach to management encourages companies to move past the "management by results" model and embrace a new paradigm governed by principles of self-organization, interdependence, and diversity. 100,000 first printing.

Genres: History, African American, Nonfiction, Reference, Race, Biography

Hardcover

First published November 13, 2000

About the author

Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. is a Professor of African and African-American Studies at Harvard University and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. He is well-known as a literary critic, an editor of literature, and a proponent of black literature and black cultural studies.

Reviews

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been on my reading list for a long time. I thought it would be nice to finally give it a read for Black History Month. Essentially, it is an encyclopedia of influential black Americans of the 20th Century. Each entry includes a picture, a bio, and a brief review of why they were influential.

I have to admit that it was rather depressing how few of these people I'd heard of, particularly from the earliest part of the century. I learned a lot reading this book. It was interesting, informative, and fun. I have a bunch of new musical artists I'm listening to because I read this. The writing is fairly accessible, although there are some mostly-gentle jabs at white people. I wasn't offended by them, but I could see how someone else might be.

My big quibble with this book is that I thought it listed way too many entertainers. I understand that, for a long time, black Americans were prevented from being influential in other ways. So that the beginning of the book was filled with a lot of jazz and blues singers, I understand. And certainly, jazz and the blues have shaped this country in many profound ways. However, in the later decades, I thought I would have seen more people from different areas of society. I was surprised to find that the later decades were even more filled with entertainers than the earlier ones. The book was written in 2000, so perhaps that has something to do with it - it was difficult, I'm sure, to say who was influential in the 90s beyond entertainers; perhaps the scientists' and the doctors', etc., achievements had yet to come to full fruition. For example, my mind jumps immediately to Neil deGrasse Tyson, but perhaps he wasn't considered influential at the time the book was written.

I digress. I'm just saying that I found it a little disappointing. I also thought that some of the editing was bad, and that surprised me for a book of this caliber.

Ultimately, however, these are minor quibbles that didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book. I think that any American, and perhaps some non-Americans, would greatly benefit from reading it.

[Liam · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book on the clearance shelf at Borders several years ago, and bought it primarily for two reasons: 1) some of my childhood heroes (and heroines) were mentioned in it (Miles Davis, Malcolm X, Billie Holiday, Jimi Hendrix, etc.), and 2) I found the idea of Professors Gates & West collaborating on a book to be quite intriguing, as they were already being portrayed (or, perhaps, set up?)as rivals in the mass media- as though there could only be one respected Black American academic at any given time, or something like that...
Unfortunately, [TO BE CONTINUED...:]

[Amani Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book The African-American Century by Henry Louis Gates Jr. is an amazing book. Anybody would love to read it. This book tells us about the African Americans who have made a difference in this lifetime. This book has everybody form Martin Luther King Jr to Michael Jackson thats how you know its going to be a fun book.

Not only is this book fun and amazing but at the same time its educating. It shows a lot of peoples pictures and there information. It is a very good book and I'm glad its actually mine.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting, Gates combines good old-fashioned research techniques and high-tech DNA tests.

He succeeded in shaking up several prominent people's perceptions of their backgrounds, makes me wonder if he would do that with most people.

And if you need another reason to know that racism is stupid: Gates own blood shows he is 70 percent European but that didn't seem to make a difference to the cop who arrested him trying to get into his own home.

[Katie (BooksRUs) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful for a paper I wrote in college.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

100 PROFILES OF 20TH CENT. LEADERS IN POLITICS, RELIGION, LITERATURE, MUSIC & SPORTS

Co-Authors Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cornel West wrote in the Introduction of this 2000 book, “we cannot imagine a truly American culture that has not, in profound ways, been shaped by the contributions of African Americans… The African-American century was first and foremost the black struggle for these ethical, political, and economic conditions of democracy in the face of vicious antidemocratic practices.... The people in this book are major agents in this unfinished struggle and incomplete drama.” (Pg. xii-xiii) The profiles range from 2-7 pages in length, beginning with W.E.B. Du Bois and concluding with Tupac Shakur, Denzel Washington, Oprah Winfrey, and Tiger Woods. Here are just a few samples of what you will find herein:

1900-1909:
DU BOIS: “he used [the rejection of his application to study in Berlin] as a sign that he had been chosen to commence his assault on white supremacy in the United State through the life of the mind.” (Pg. 4)
JACK JOHNSON: “In 1908… he embodied the ideal of black masculinity that whites feared most.” (Pg. 17)
C.J. WALKER: “Madame C.J. Walker … made a fortune for herself as well as a decent living for a workforce … that numbered twenty thousand in the United States and the Caribbean.” (Pg. 28)
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON: “He was … a subtle master of self-promotion and public relations, often so conciliatory to whites that he was willing to blame Negroes for their own limitations… [But] he secretly funneled money into civil rights cases.” (Pg. 33)
IDA B. WELLS: “If one person can be said to stand as the creator of the black feminist movement in the United States in this century, it is Ida B. Wells Barnett.” (Pg. 38)

1910-1919:
GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER: “As a proponent of scientific agriculture, Carver distinguished the study of farming while emphasizing the necessity of environmental conservation.” (Pg. 46)
CARTER WOODSON: “He pioneered the historical study of black America… Woodson established institutions and provided the intellectual discursive space for young historians moving into this new field.” (Pg. 73)

1920-1929:
JOSEPHINE BAKER: “Her refusal to play to segregated audiences or stay in segregated hotels, and her vocal support for the civil rights movement, won her renewed admiration in America.” (Pg. 89)
MARCUS GARVEY: “The logic of black pride and economic self-reliance that was such a central part of Garvey’s platform has become the collective property of black culture at home and abroad.” (Pg. 95)

1930-1939:
MARIAN ANDERSON: “‘Yours is a voice such as one hears once in a hundred years,’ the conductor Arturo Toscanini once told her.
... her mind [was] set on excellence and her heart set on freedom.” (Pg. 115)
FATHER DIVINE: “scholars have begun to see Father Divine… as the creator of a social institution that … fed, housed, and clothed more New Yorkers during the Great Depression than the city’s relief agencies.” (Pg. 122)
ZORA NEALE HURSTON: “she was also the first novelist to depict a black woman’s successful quest to find a voice and to overcome male oppression.” (Pg. 132)
JOE LOUIS: “Louis knocked [Max] Schmelling out. Instantly, he was one of the most popular athletes … in the whole of the Allied world… He had crossed the line from being a boxing champion to a black American idol.” (Pg. 138)
JESSE OWENS: “The Nazi philosophy already had infected sports, and tension over racist theories … was in the air. Owens arrived … and proceeded to dominate…” (Pg. 141)
PAUL ROBESON: “He was a world-renowned thespian, a highly talented singer, a scholar, a linguist, and a courageous political activist…” (Pg. 143)

1940-1949:
BILLIE HOLIDAY: “Holiday evoked beauty in her music even when she became haggard, aged, and hardened by drugs and alcohol…” (Pg. 164)
A. PHILIP RANDOLPH: “Serving as a bridge between black leaders of different and sometimes contentious camps, in 1963 Randolph revived his March on Washington movement.” (Pg. 184)
JACKIE ROBINSON: “[Branch] Rickey answered, ‘I want a ballplayer with enough guts NOT to fight back.’ Robinson accepted the challenge,” (Pg. 187)
RICHARD WRIGHT: “While in Paris, Wright struck up an acquaintance with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir and began a correspondence with Frantz Fanon.” (Pg. 193)

1950-1959:
RALPHE BUNCHE: “in 1949… [He] worked almost single-handedly to bring Israel and the Arab states to a truce.” (Pg. 197)
ROSA PARKS: “People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically… the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” (Pg. 223)

1960-1969:
MUHAMMAD ALI: “with the sports world reeling in shock, Ali announced his conversion to the Nation of Islam… The country was shocked at his declaration of black nationalism.” (Pg. 235)
JAMES BALDWIN: “he articulated the nuances and complexities of American racial relations as no one has been able to do since.” (Pg. 240)
JOHN COLTRANE: “he translated musically what he was learning about the decolonized world and how that may have corresponded with being black in America.” (Pg. 244)
ANGELA DAVIS: “In 1969, UCLA hired Davis as an assistant professor of philosophy… her Communist party membership drew the ire of the … Board of Regents… [who] attempted to fire Davis. After protests from students and faculty, she was reinstated by court order.” (Pg. 247)
JIMI HENDFRIX; “You didn’t have to be a musical expert to see and feel the revolution Jimi made through sound.” (Pg. 253)
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: “He is the prophet of the century, and the spoken voice of the civil rights movement. He was a child of the segregated South who insisted that whites were capable of loving their black neighbors.” (Pg. 256)
MALCOLM X: “Malcolm experienced a reevaluation of his political values. Fresh from a hajj to Mecca, he returned invigorated by the potentialities of cross-racial alliance… it signaled a shift toward the more traditional Muslim tenets.” (Pg. 268)

1970-1979:
MAYA ANGELOU: “‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ inaugurated a tradition of black female self-revelation… that would give rise to the sophisticated fiction of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison.” (Pg. 279)
JAMES BROWN: “He was the godfather of soul, profoundly affecting the course of African-American music in the 1960s and 1970s.” (Pg. 284)

1980-1989:
RICHARD PRYOR: “Pryor came on the heels of a group of black comics such as Dick Gregory and Bill Cosby… [he] decided to present his ‘real side’ by plumbing the bottomless reserve of folk humor in the black community.” (Pg. 311)
JESSE JACKSON: “Jackson stayed on to help the SCLC’s failed antipoverty effort---which culminated in Resurrection City, a tent community of protesters who camped in the nation’s capital to publicize the problems of the poor…” (Pg. 324-325)
MICHAEL JACKSON: “Jackson’s mastery of the dance and the lyric defined popular culture in the 1980s around the world.” (Pg. 329)
ALICE WALKER: “Alice Walker… has done more than any other author to articulate the contours of an African-American women’s literary tradition.” (Pg. 344)

1990-1999:
LOUIS FARRAKHAN: “Through the late seventies into the early eighties he was busy shoring up the Nation [of Islam] both economically and ideologically…” (Pg. 351)
MICHAEL JORDAN: “Simply put, Michael Jordan is the greatest corporate pitchman of all time… he has generated a staggering $10 billion in revenue and counting.” (Pg. 355)
TONI MORRISON: “Morrison plunged deep into the forbidden waters of American slavery… and … unveiled the blue notes deep in the core of black American life.” (Pg. 368)
TUPAC SHAKUR: “His music lives on as a constant reminder that we must always heed the words of our young, no matter how angry they are.” (Pg. 375)
DENZEL WASHINGTON: “He heads an all-too-short list of black actors who consistently receive work. And yet… he still does not receive many scripts, owing… to the industry belief that black actors… can only play ‘black’ characters.” (Pg. 378)

Well-photographed, this book will be “must owning” for anyone even remotely interested in contemporary African-American history.