Black Intellectuals: Race and Responsibility in American Life (New Edition) [Paperback]

Banks M William (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 17, 1998

"An important book, significant because it highlights the diversity and richness of Afro-American intellectual life.... It will surely be a crucial reference work for years to come". -- New York Times Book Review

In the volumes of literature on black history and thought, few have focused on the black thinkers who have shaped the course of American culture. This landmark work charts the contours of black intellectual life across American history and chronicles its fluctuating fortunes.

Black Intellectuals offers a centuries-deep analysis of black life, beginning with the arrival of Africans as slaves, when medicine men and conjurers held ancient, powerful wisdom. Author William Banks goes on to discuss prominent figures ranging from black pioneers like Alexander Crummell, Frederick Douglass, and Anna Cooper to intellectuals of the modern age such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Alain Locke, E. Franklin Frazier, Toni Morrison, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. These and hundreds of other black scholars and artists -- many of them interviewed for this volume -- people an enlightened and imaginative landscape, fascinating for both its range and its diversity.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Banks, a professor of African-American studies at the University of California, Berkeley, has written a scholarly history of black American intellectuals covering some 250 years of progress. The slave generations of African-Americans had precious little opportunity for intellectual pursuits. Initially the community's intellectuals were mostly Christian pastors struggling to reconcile Christianity with the barbarous oppression of their people. Later freed negroes agitating for abolition became more prominent, and the founding in 1827 of Freedom's Journal provided a literary outlet for their work. After reconstruction, a network of black colleges and the proliferation of black newspapers and magazines secured a solid base for an intellectual life that today is thriving more than ever before. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Banks has provided a solid and discerning, if not exhaustive, overview of black intellectuals?including both scholars and creative artists?in America since abolitionist days. He fleshes out the historic debate between W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington with accounts of the rise of black colleges and the American Negro Academy, which struggled with the eternal issue of black intellectuals' social responsibility. Banks covers the Harlem Renaissance, the temptations of Marxism and the rise of the civil rights movement, offering mini-profiles of important thinkers. The second half of the book is animated by interviews Banks conducted with academics like Clayborne Carson and Henry Louis Gates Jr. on topics ranging from their youthful ambitions to the tensions between intellectual independence and responsiveness to their "constituency" of African Americans. Some interviewees reflect ruefully on 1960s campus pressures to be "authentically" black?a contemporary issue Banks slights somewhat, since his book hardly discusses 1990s Afrocentrism. But he does provide brief accounts of the rise of black studies departments, debates over slavery's legacy and the opening up of the literary canon. Current heavyweights like Thomas Sowell and Cornel West get their due; Banks concludes that both independent and constituency-minded black intellectuals continue a historic tradition. This book makes a useful introduction to a rich field. The author teaches African American studies at UC-Berkeley. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. (February 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393316742
• ISBN-13: 978-0393316742
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,078,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Black Intellectual Journey, December 26, 1999

By 

Bonita L. Davis - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Intellectuals: Race and Responsibility in American Life (Hardcover)

Black Intellectuals by William Banks is a landmark text in describing the history, development, paradoxes and challenges of being a Black intellectual in the United States. Banks has illuminated the historical and cultural factors which gave rise to such men and women in an environment which denied them their humanity. I enjoyed learning about African-Americans (known and unknown) whose intellectual output critiqued and challenged both white and black cultures. It was very helpful to see how these men and women stood their ground in telling it like it is regardless of whom may disagree. Even though I enjoyed the work, I found several weaknesses. First, there was a paucity of information regarding Black women and their contributions in the intellectual realm. Some are mentioned by name and pictures are shown of them but there appears to be no serious consideration given to their thoughts. Second, Banks' text was weak in dealing with the co-opting of Black intellectual thought in white institutions. Third, Banks puts too much emphasis on those in academia as being the "intellectuals". He fails to examine those who are independent intellectuals in their own right who have impacted on the community. Despite these short comings Banks has given us a book to serve as food for thought as Black Intellectuals explore their role in the community as we head for the 21st Century

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not precisely as the title would indicate, May 21, 2001

By 

mateo52 "invisible man" (State College, Pa.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Black Intellectuals: Race and Responsibility in American Life (New Edition) (Paperback)

An excellent reference book that should become a primary source for anyone interested in the evolution of the Black Intelligentsia. Professor Bank's seminal work obligated re-evaluation of my concept of intellectualism; while I cannot wholeheartedly agree with his conclusions regarding some noted individuals, the exercise was beneficial. He has offered an arguably relaxed interpretation of intellectualism therefore, a number of the individuals he highlights may have been fortunate beneficiaries of caucasian largesse rather than bonafide critical thinkers, obviously dependent on one's subjective view. It is a somewhat free-flowing area of inquiry, in many respects analogous to the mis-appellation of *literate* to many of today's writers based on fortuitous publication and but meager substance.

Banks' text revealed itself to be moderately distinct from what I anticipated. He deals less with specific ideologies than with the chronology of people and their promulgated ideas. One particularly interesting sidelight related to the constraints on the Black Intellectual, until very recently, who elected to think "outside the box." In fact, vestigial reluctance by peers to acknowledge the contributions of individuals who give contemplation to subject matter outside the limits of Afrocentric or ethnic concerns still exists.

In sum, BLACK INTELLECTUALS is an indispensible overview, but definitely only a starting point for this area of investigation. The book is a commendable effort to consolidate referent material in convenient volume. It documents many of the pertinent parties but is admittedly not an attempt to be all-inclusive. What it does accomplish is immutable validation of the vast contributions of Blacks and specifically, Black Americans to every facet of art, literature, science and philosophy, in spite of the obstacles placed before them throughout the history of this country.

5.0 out of 5 stars AN INTERESTING CONSIDERATION OF BLACK INTELLECTUALS, January 25, 2011

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black Intellectuals: Race and Responsibility in American Life (New Edition) (Paperback)

William M. Banks is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley.

He writes in the Preface to this 1996 book, "In focusing on black intellectuals, as an entity in themselves, this book explores a number of deeper questions: How did racial discrimination and prejudice shape the emergence and activities of African-American intellectuals? How did race define them? How did race influence individuals' life choices and attitudes? What are the central controversies among black intellectuals, and between them and their white counterparts?"

Here are some quotations from the book:

"Frederick) Douglass's predicament illustrates a dilemma of the black intellectual who hoped to develop egalitarian relationships with powerful whites. True collegial relationships within the abolitionist movment were undermined by the whites' sense of racial and social superiority." (Pg. 24)
"Relegated to the margins of mainstream cultural institutions, most black intellectuals expressed little of the general frustration articulated by the Lost Generation." (Pg. 81)
"Under fire from student activists, universities responded to political threats rather than to the intellectual challenge posed by the idea of black studies." (Pg. 187)
"No person was more involved in stimulating intra-group dialogue about American social policy during the seventies than Thomas Sowell." (Pg. 228)