Racial Equality in America

by Franklin, John Hope

• ISBN13: 9780826209122
• ISBN10: 0826209122
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-09-01
• Publisher: Univ of Missouri Pr

Summary

Now available for the first time in paperback is distinguished historian John Hope Franklin's eloquent and forceful meditation on the persistent disparity between the goal of racial equality in America and the facts of discrimination. In a searing critique of Thomas Jefferson, Franklin shows that this spokesman for democracy did not include African Americans among those "created equal." Franklin chronicles the events of the nineteenth century that solidified inequality in America and shows how emancipation dealt only with slavery, not with inequality, In the twentieth century, America finally confronted the fact that equality is indivisible: it must not be divided so that it is extended to some at the expense of others. Once this indivisibility is accepted, Franklin charges, America faces the monumental task of overcoming its long heritage of inequality. Racial Equality in Americais a powerful reminder that our history is more than a record of idealized democratic traditions and institutions. It is a dramatic message to all Ameicans, calling them to know their history and themselves.

Table of Contents

Preface
The Dream Deferred	p. 1
The Old Order Changeth Not	p. 37
Equality Indivisible	p. 75
For Further Reading	p. 109
Index	p. 115
About the Author	p. 120
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.