What do you think?
Rate this book
Masters of the Dream: The Strength and Betrayal of the Black America
The host of a nationally syndicated radio talk show argues that the black community must return to religious faith and grass-roots political action to restore morality, self-respect, and self-government in the inner cities. 25,000 first printing. $20,000 ad/promo.
- GenresPolitics
214 pages, Hardcover
First published February 17, 1995
1 person is currently reading
32 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 29, 2023
A REAFFIRMATION OF ‘THE AMERICAN DREAM’ FOR BLACKS
Author Alan Keys wrote in the first chapter of this 1995 book, “The American dream is dead. That’s what we’re being told today by supposedly insightful sociologists and media pundits. We’re seeing the first generation of young people who can’t expect to do as well as their parents did, they say. They won’t have as nice a home… or work a job that pays as well. The dream is dead. One premise of this book is that these conclusions miss the mark. They are based on a misconception. The American dream wasn’t just about money and material advancement. It was a dream of freedom… Most of these people weren’t guaranteed a better future in material terms than the one they left behind… It was a dream of freedom. And its heroes included Native Americans who fought against overwhelming odds to maintain their autonomous way of life. They included fugitive enslaved blacks who braved the tracking gods and bounty hunters to follow the North Star out of slavery.” (Pg. 1-2)
He continues, “From childhood, many enslaved blacks understood that slavery contradicted their essential being. They knew that… they had an intrinsic worth and dignity that did not depend upon the captor’s judgment. It could not be degraded by the captor’s vices, or humiliated by his contempt. Whatever outrages he visited upon them, they could by their own acts of kindness or courage merit far greater respect than the people who violated God’s law by enslaving them. Torn from parents and siblings, they could maintain a sense of family ties and obligation…. What made this moral resistance possible was the belief, born mainly of religious faith, that all individuals possess a divine spark that they can keep alight in every circumstance of life… This source of inward dignity meant that, despite slavery, discrimination, and repression, black Americans … did not surrender spiritually. This was the key to the survival of the race when the enforced laws and vicious practices of the land might have led to extinction.” (Pg. 8-9)
He observes, “The terrific crisis that literally threatens the lives of millions of people in our urban communities shows us the consequences. The failure to pass on the values that helped black Americans to survive not decades, but several centuries, of mistreatment is taking an awesome toll, especially among the young in many urban neighborhoods today, random murder stalks the streets… Teenagers gun each other down in drive-by shootings; they stab each other in school hallways. A walk across the street … to the drugstore can lead to a face-off with death.” (Pg. 12-13) He adds, “most of the physical mayhem blacks are suffering in our cities today is self-inflicted. The young black men dying on the streets aren’t being lynched by white rapists; the pregnant young women aren’t being raped by white captors. Blacks are killing each other, drugging each other, sexually abusing each other. Believe if you like that it’s all the result of an elaborate white conspiracy to eliminate black people…” (Pg. 16)
He notes, “The Christian ethical system made it possible for enslaved people to understand that true freedom, moral freedom was something their captors could not take away… Against the economic determinism of the slavery system of values, the enslaved blacks asserted the idea of intrinsic worth and personal moral autonomy embodied in the Christian worldview.” (Pg. 18)
He explains, “Blacks responding to the enslaver culture could not experience Christianity in its pure form. Instead, they encountered it in a socially subordinate, instrumental role. This gave them scope to construct their own unique brand of Christianity… in which the basic concepts of right and justice… reflected the thorny realities of their oppressed situation. Rather seeing religion as … a strict external authority dictating behavior, enslaved people felt it to be … an integral component of their moral and physical survival.” (Pg. 53-54)
He says, “The fundamental choice facing black America has usually been presented as a choice between confrontation and accommodation … Is the first challenge before black Americans to defeat white racism or define and develop ourselves?... The liberals seem to insist that we give up our claim to be black; the separatists, that we surrender our claim to be American. Yet in our hearts we know that the struggle to conserve both has been… our special destiny.” (Pg. 85)
He observes, “the community as a whole has deteriorated… One great pillar… the family, is crumbling. A growing number of blacks in the so-called ‘underclass’ have, for all practical purposes, abandoned the ethic of self-advancement. Black churches grow in membership even as they decline in moral influence and effect. The violence blacks once suffered at the hands of others many now inflict upon each other, in the schools, in the streets, in the womb, on such a scale that it amounts to self-administered genocide. We will not understand what to do about this crisis until we have better understood how it came about…” (Pg. 104)
He says of Clarence Thomas, “Thomas’ supposed opposition to affirmative action wasn’t what chiefly motivated the black establishment to oppose him. His main offense was simply that he never parroted the agenda of the union bureaucrats and left-liberal Democrats who seem to control the elite voices that are supposed to speak for black Americans… he thinks that some traditional social and sexual mores should be preserved… Thomas simply stands for the basic values of family, faith, and self-improvement that form the bedrock of black-American character.” (Pg. 108-109)
He asserts, “I am not arguing that the liberal welfare state simply created problems that didn’t already exist. Tendencies toward moral dissolution certainly existed in the black community, as they do in every community. But… The liberal welfare state entered the picture like a large new army thrown into the fray on the side of moral dissolution… it gave aid and comfort to its antimoral tendencies.” (Pg. 131-132) He continues, “welfare-state liberalism… made its beneficiaries the subjects of a bureaucratic tyranny. People in public housing projects have had little or no authority over the affairs of their own families. Welfare entitlement regulations have made it perversely illogical for man to assume their responsibilities as husbands and fathers… They become instead the inhabitants of an unfree, basically totalitarian ‘welfare state.’” (Pg. 144-145)
He summarizes, “Black America will not escape the current spiral of decline and self-destruction unless we rediscover and renew our moral heritage as a people. Rising interest in the idea of Afro-centric education bespeaks the community’s growing recognition of this fact… To preserve our moral heritage, it is not enough to recall the facts of our past experience. We must also remember … the values they represent.” (Pg. 161-162)
He proposes, “in order to get support for community projects, [black leadership] must approach these same outsiders as supplicants. Neighborhood self-government would help to resolve this dilemma… They would … derive authority from their oversight role in the administration of law enforcement and government social welfare programs in the neighborhood… Through the authority of the neighborhood council, the community could assert its ownership of institutions and agencies that are today regarded as representatives of outside domination.” (Pg. 171-172)
This book will appeal to those seeking a Black conservative perspective on current social and political issues.
Author Alan Keys wrote in the first chapter of this 1995 book, “The American dream is dead. That’s what we’re being told today by supposedly insightful sociologists and media pundits. We’re seeing the first generation of young people who can’t expect to do as well as their parents did, they say. They won’t have as nice a home… or work a job that pays as well. The dream is dead. One premise of this book is that these conclusions miss the mark. They are based on a misconception. The American dream wasn’t just about money and material advancement. It was a dream of freedom… Most of these people weren’t guaranteed a better future in material terms than the one they left behind… It was a dream of freedom. And its heroes included Native Americans who fought against overwhelming odds to maintain their autonomous way of life. They included fugitive enslaved blacks who braved the tracking gods and bounty hunters to follow the North Star out of slavery.” (Pg. 1-2)
He continues, “From childhood, many enslaved blacks understood that slavery contradicted their essential being. They knew that… they had an intrinsic worth and dignity that did not depend upon the captor’s judgment. It could not be degraded by the captor’s vices, or humiliated by his contempt. Whatever outrages he visited upon them, they could by their own acts of kindness or courage merit far greater respect than the people who violated God’s law by enslaving them. Torn from parents and siblings, they could maintain a sense of family ties and obligation…. What made this moral resistance possible was the belief, born mainly of religious faith, that all individuals possess a divine spark that they can keep alight in every circumstance of life… This source of inward dignity meant that, despite slavery, discrimination, and repression, black Americans … did not surrender spiritually. This was the key to the survival of the race when the enforced laws and vicious practices of the land might have led to extinction.” (Pg. 8-9)
He observes, “The terrific crisis that literally threatens the lives of millions of people in our urban communities shows us the consequences. The failure to pass on the values that helped black Americans to survive not decades, but several centuries, of mistreatment is taking an awesome toll, especially among the young in many urban neighborhoods today, random murder stalks the streets… Teenagers gun each other down in drive-by shootings; they stab each other in school hallways. A walk across the street … to the drugstore can lead to a face-off with death.” (Pg. 12-13) He adds, “most of the physical mayhem blacks are suffering in our cities today is self-inflicted. The young black men dying on the streets aren’t being lynched by white rapists; the pregnant young women aren’t being raped by white captors. Blacks are killing each other, drugging each other, sexually abusing each other. Believe if you like that it’s all the result of an elaborate white conspiracy to eliminate black people…” (Pg. 16)
He notes, “The Christian ethical system made it possible for enslaved people to understand that true freedom, moral freedom was something their captors could not take away… Against the economic determinism of the slavery system of values, the enslaved blacks asserted the idea of intrinsic worth and personal moral autonomy embodied in the Christian worldview.” (Pg. 18)
He explains, “Blacks responding to the enslaver culture could not experience Christianity in its pure form. Instead, they encountered it in a socially subordinate, instrumental role. This gave them scope to construct their own unique brand of Christianity… in which the basic concepts of right and justice… reflected the thorny realities of their oppressed situation. Rather seeing religion as … a strict external authority dictating behavior, enslaved people felt it to be … an integral component of their moral and physical survival.” (Pg. 53-54)
He says, “The fundamental choice facing black America has usually been presented as a choice between confrontation and accommodation … Is the first challenge before black Americans to defeat white racism or define and develop ourselves?... The liberals seem to insist that we give up our claim to be black; the separatists, that we surrender our claim to be American. Yet in our hearts we know that the struggle to conserve both has been… our special destiny.” (Pg. 85)
He observes, “the community as a whole has deteriorated… One great pillar… the family, is crumbling. A growing number of blacks in the so-called ‘underclass’ have, for all practical purposes, abandoned the ethic of self-advancement. Black churches grow in membership even as they decline in moral influence and effect. The violence blacks once suffered at the hands of others many now inflict upon each other, in the schools, in the streets, in the womb, on such a scale that it amounts to self-administered genocide. We will not understand what to do about this crisis until we have better understood how it came about…” (Pg. 104)
He says of Clarence Thomas, “Thomas’ supposed opposition to affirmative action wasn’t what chiefly motivated the black establishment to oppose him. His main offense was simply that he never parroted the agenda of the union bureaucrats and left-liberal Democrats who seem to control the elite voices that are supposed to speak for black Americans… he thinks that some traditional social and sexual mores should be preserved… Thomas simply stands for the basic values of family, faith, and self-improvement that form the bedrock of black-American character.” (Pg. 108-109)
He asserts, “I am not arguing that the liberal welfare state simply created problems that didn’t already exist. Tendencies toward moral dissolution certainly existed in the black community, as they do in every community. But… The liberal welfare state entered the picture like a large new army thrown into the fray on the side of moral dissolution… it gave aid and comfort to its antimoral tendencies.” (Pg. 131-132) He continues, “welfare-state liberalism… made its beneficiaries the subjects of a bureaucratic tyranny. People in public housing projects have had little or no authority over the affairs of their own families. Welfare entitlement regulations have made it perversely illogical for man to assume their responsibilities as husbands and fathers… They become instead the inhabitants of an unfree, basically totalitarian ‘welfare state.’” (Pg. 144-145)
He summarizes, “Black America will not escape the current spiral of decline and self-destruction unless we rediscover and renew our moral heritage as a people. Rising interest in the idea of Afro-centric education bespeaks the community’s growing recognition of this fact… To preserve our moral heritage, it is not enough to recall the facts of our past experience. We must also remember … the values they represent.” (Pg. 161-162)
He proposes, “in order to get support for community projects, [black leadership] must approach these same outsiders as supplicants. Neighborhood self-government would help to resolve this dilemma… They would … derive authority from their oversight role in the administration of law enforcement and government social welfare programs in the neighborhood… Through the authority of the neighborhood council, the community could assert its ownership of institutions and agencies that are today regarded as representatives of outside domination.” (Pg. 171-172)
This book will appeal to those seeking a Black conservative perspective on current social and political issues.
November 4, 2014
Ambassador-Dr. Alan Keyes is a man whom I deeply respect for his superior intellect and righteous understanding of the causes of the rise and fall of nations and peoples in history.
In this book the former UN ambassador challenges black America to rethink and reshape its destiny by looking to our past for inspiration. Dr. Keyes firmly believes that the path to the black American future lies in a rekindling of its past, including looking to the African traditions of old for clues to our character, culture, and accomplishment. Further, Keyes examines black American history in particular and asks blacks in this country to consider whether their connections to liberalism and statism are manifestations of their actual beliefs as a people, or are the infusion of decades of failed policies aimed at them by statist collectivists.
Alan Keyes, though he is a conservative and a former member of the Republican Party, is not a sellout nor a traitor to the cause of black empowerment in America. And though he has often been painted this way by those with deep misconceptions about Keyes and his principles, to do so is to mischaracterize the man, and to misunderstand how and why he firmly roots his ideas in the cause of liberty instead of the morass of collectivism which many black Americans have been naively sucked into.
In this book the former UN ambassador challenges black America to rethink and reshape its destiny by looking to our past for inspiration. Dr. Keyes firmly believes that the path to the black American future lies in a rekindling of its past, including looking to the African traditions of old for clues to our character, culture, and accomplishment. Further, Keyes examines black American history in particular and asks blacks in this country to consider whether their connections to liberalism and statism are manifestations of their actual beliefs as a people, or are the infusion of decades of failed policies aimed at them by statist collectivists.
Alan Keyes, though he is a conservative and a former member of the Republican Party, is not a sellout nor a traitor to the cause of black empowerment in America. And though he has often been painted this way by those with deep misconceptions about Keyes and his principles, to do so is to mischaracterize the man, and to misunderstand how and why he firmly roots his ideas in the cause of liberty instead of the morass of collectivism which many black Americans have been naively sucked into.
August 15, 2021
Well intentioned, but not as well written.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews