America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible [Paperback]

Stephan Thernstrom (Author), Abigail Thernstrom (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 1999

In a book destined to become a classic, Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom present important new information about the positive changes that have been achieved and the measurable improvement in the lives of the majority of African-Americans. Supporting their conclusions with statistics on education, earnings, and housing, they argue that the perception of serious racial divisions in this country is outdated -- and dangerous.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Written by a pair of social scientists--Stephan Thernstrom is a professor of history at Harvard; his wife, Abigail, is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute--America in Black and White is a comprehensive look at how much life has changed (and remained the same) for black Americans. The authors conclude that, while much remains to be done, life has gotten measurably better for blacks since the civil rights movement. For example, only a quarter of black families live below the poverty line, as compared with more than three-quarters of black families in 1940; similarly, where 60 percent of working black women were domestics in 1940, today a majority are white-collar workers. In what will likely prove to be the most controversial of their conclusions, the authors argue that, while many problems remain, traditional civil rights remedies, such as affirmative action and racial preferences, will not solve those problems. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This is a solid, sweeping account (from a Harvard scholar and a race relations specialist) of race relations in the United States over the last 50-some years, from the days of Jim Crow, through sit-ins, the African American migration from the rural South to the urban North, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 1965 Voting Rights Act, the affirmative action era, the racially perceptual influence of an "appallingly high" urban black crime level, and the steady growth of a suburban black middle class. The authors assess judicial, educational, political, and social influences on what, despite real continuing problems, has been progress in easing race-related inequities. They see preferential policies as giving credence to the separateness of minorities. On balance, they are optimistic, as long as opportunity is provided for everyone in one nation. Of great breadth and depth, this work is highly recommended for academic and public readership.?Suzanne W. Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology at Alfred
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 704 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st Touchstone Ed edition (February 2, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684844974
• ISBN-13: 978-0684844978
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #874,421 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Give Credit Where Credit is Due, December 29, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible (Hardcover)

I read this book with the explicit purpose of exposing the flaws that I expected to find for an article I was writing about racial myths. Instead, I found myself convinced by the statistics and arguments, notwithstanding intensive and prolonged scrutiny of the data. It proved two things. First, I'm not as much a closed-minded leftist as my critics like to claim and, second, that the Thernstroms are not as susceptible to error as people like me like to claim. (and it was interesting being labeled as gullible by my ever so fickle fans) This is an extremely important voice in the race-relations conversation. Give the Thernstroms credit for a job well done.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Slightly to the right of center look at race relations, December 8, 2003

By 

Jeffrey Leach (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible (Paperback)

Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom's "America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible" charts a different course from many of the scholarly books written about racial relations in the United States today. The authors agree that the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s was a resounding success, opening many doors to African-Americans as a result of the systematic dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the South. This book is necessary, claim the authors, because the ideas that originally drove the civil rights movement have since drifted into dangerous terrain. According to this book, Martin Luther King's message of one nation where all people will be judged by their individual merits and not skin color has become a land where blacks and whites are once again moving into separate camps based on race. The introduction of affirmative action programs and other racial social policies does not solve divisive problems but instead creates new racial barriers. Moreover, media and civil rights proponents today discuss black problems as though that segment of the population has made little progress. The authors insist that there are still nagging difficulties to overcome, but that a "lack of analytic rigor" leads to false perceptions about how far blacks have actually risen in society. Therefore, the authors rely heavily on statistical tables, charts, and polls to prove their arguments.

The first section of "America in Black and White" outlines the history of the odious conditions blacks faced in the American South and the resulting rise of the civil rights movement. The Thernstroms describe southern society in all of its squalor: the crushing poverty faced by both whites and blacks, the lackluster drive towards industrialization that kept many members of the population toiling in fields and small towns, pathetic levels of state spending on education for blacks, and the biases of the criminal justice system. Relying heavily on Gunnar Myrdal's groundbreaking study of race in America, the authors correctly detail the host of social structures aligned against the African-American population. For example, blacks rarely received decent treatment in the legal system because police departments run by whites often failed to protect the black citizenry from criminals. Moreover, the legal system in the South considered crimes committed against blacks secondary to outrages perpetrated against white members of society. Subsequent sections of the book take an in depth look at black progress in various social arenas from the 1970s onward, arenas such as education, politics, law, crime, and many others.

The absence of job opportunities, poor education, lack of protections in the courts, and segregation policies in the South led African-Americans to increasingly move north. The first migration came during World War I. A second, even larger migration occurred in the 1940s and 1950s. Blacks in the North did not have to deal with segregation, but did experience racism in housing and certain sectors of the job market. Better conditions in the northern states led to an increasing drive for an end to Jim Crow in the South. The authors argue that federal legislation destroying segregation in the 1960s also contained the seeds of future divisions. The Thernstroms see a sinister change of direction with the release of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's report on the black family in 1965. Moynihan's remedy for the problems faced by black citizens, echoed by Lyndon Johnson in a speech at Howard University the same year, moved beyond providing for equal opportunity to call for "equal results" as well. This argument indirectly endorsed the idea of affirmative action and social entitlement programs based specifically on race. For the authors, the problems inherent in this approach are clear: to formulate policy giving special treatment to one race is just as racist as passing laws subjugating specific races.

Perhaps the most interesting section of "America in Black and White," and probably the most controversial, concerns the authors' claims that African-American social advancement was greatest immediately before the rise of the civil rights movement. During the 1940s and 1950s, the authors write, blacks surged forward in nearly all areas of American society. This growth was far from perfect, but in the arenas of education, economics, politics, and sports blacks saw remarkable gains. Almost half of the African-Americans who lived in poverty moved out of that classification during this period. Education levels for blacks, while lagging behind whites, still grew significantly compared to earlier eras in American history. This period also saw the integration of professional baseball and basketball, opening up an entirely new aspect of society to black advancement. African-Americans showed signs of vigor at the polls, as a court case outlawing white southern primaries and greater movement to the North allowed more blacks to vote than ever before. Obviously, there were still many problems to overcome: black wages still lagged behind white levels, education was still a problem, and the South still practiced vigorous discrimination against its black population. But African-Americans did make progress, and this chapter effectively illustrates that modern day claims about the complete lack of black improvement before the civil rights movements of the 1960s are patently false.

The greatest problem with this analysis of black gains during the 1940s and 1950s is that it undercuts the need and influence of activism as a force for change. If African-Americans were achieving so much, why did the civil rights movement appear on the scene? It may well be a case of a segment of the population finding some success and quickly wanting more, thereby accelerating the growth and scope of that change. But the Thernstroms spend more time discussing the overarching factors-political, economic, and social-that contributed to two decades of growth instead of focusing on what everyday people were doing on a local level to bring about advancement. Following this argument to its logical conclusion makes a reader suspect that twenty years of gradual progress would have toppled Jim Crow laws without the assistance of any sort of social activism.

23 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Comprehensive Analysis of American Race Relations..., July 25, 2003

By 

D. A. Martin "Avid Reader" (Morocco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible (Paperback)

Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom's book is the most comprehensive survey of American race relations that I have ever read. The authors present important new information about the positive changes and improvements in the lives of African-Americans as a whole. They go on to argue, with tons of statistics to back them up, that the perception of serious racial divisions in our country are outdated, exaggerated, and dangerous. The reason for this, they show, is political: "it nurtures the mix of black anger and white shame and guilt that sustains the race-based social policies implemented since the late 1960s." Proponents of this status quo are afraid that calling attention, for example, to the rapidly-growing black middle class, "... would invite public complacency and undercut support for the affirmative action regime."

I was especially enthralled by the authors' analysis of the "War on Poverty" programs of the 1960's, particularly the expansion of welfare, and their horrifically negative effects on generations of black families since. Not only did the "War on Poverty" make things worse for the poor, but the expansion of welfare to include unwed women and children fostered a lifestyle of dependency and irresponsible behavior, and precipitated the downward trend in two-parent black families, that has left three generations of black Americans in dire straits ever since.

Liberals, especially black liberals, are terrified of books like this, and rightfully so. This book undercuts the blacks-as-perennial-victims/American-society-as-forever-racist rhetoric that keeps the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons, with support from the liberal media, in business. Along with the works of John McWhorter, Shelby Steele and Thomas Sowell, this books serves as a much-needed wake-up call on the issue of race; a cold dose of reality that no doubt makes most liberals cringe.