Eyes off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955 (Paperback)

by Carol Anderson (Author) "War loomed. This time, however, African Americans were determined that there would be no repeat performance of the First World War's broken promises..." (more)
Key Phrases: domestic jurisdiction clause, trusteeship plan, black inequality, United States, Walter White, United Nations (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Carol Anderson has written the most thoroughly researched and interpretively sophisticated monograph on Cold War civil rights. Eyes Off the Prize is destined to become a benchmark for the field." David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of W.E.B. DuBois

"An outstanding and timely study. Meticulously researched, boldly written, and persuasively argued, it clearly illustrates exactly where and precisely how the broadly based NAACP program of human rights got eviscerated during the 1940s and early 1950s, producing a narrowly focused and tantalizingly inadequate series of civil rights measures. Above all this book emphasizes the blatant ways in which the issue of race indelibly permeates all aspects of politics, society and economy in the United States." Franklin W. Knight, Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Professor, Johns Hopkins University

"Carol Anderson, has written an exciting political narrative history of African-American attempts to raise the issue of human rights before the United Nations in order to attack de jure and de facto segregation and racism in the US in the early post World War II period. Anderson's fascinating political narrative portrays the intense and complicated internal politics that characterized the NAACP, the pre-war National Negro Congress, and the post-war Civil Rights Congress...this is an very valuable work for students of African-American and general US history." Canadian Journal of History/Annales canadiennes d'histoire, Norman D. Markowitz, Rutgers University

"This narrative of the NAACP challenges conventional interpretations of how America's foremost civil rights organization negotiated the dangerous currents of the Cold War. Eyes Off the Prize is deeply researched and authoritatively written. Carol Anderson's vivid prose richly illuminates the history of the connection between civil rights and international affairs." Brenda Gayle Plummer, author of Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935-1960

"This is a terrific book that makes an important and distinctive contribution to the growing literature on race and U.S. foreign relations." Mary L. Dudziak, author of Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy

"Eyes Off the Prize is exhaustively researched, carefully crafted, skillfully and passionately argued, thought-provoking, insightful, and enormously valuable. It is extremely good in examining how the volatile mixture of personalities with mixed motives, domestic politics, and foreign affairs combined to influence the direction of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the context of the struggle for the larger prize of human rights. It is a remarkable and a powerful book." Paul Gordon Lauren, author of Power and Prejudice: The Politics and Diplomacy of Racial Discrimination

"...a rich historical narrative..." Journal of African American History

"A well-written and densely researched work...an important contribution." The Journal of Southern History

"...this is an impressive and valuable book." Political Science Quarterly

"Carol Anderson, has written an exciting political narrative history of African-American attempts to raise the isse of human rights before the United Nations in order to attack de jure and de facto segregation and racism in the US in the early post World War II period. Anderson's fascinating political narrative portrays the intense and complicated internal politics that characterized the NAACP, the pre-war National Negro Congress, and the post-war Civil Rights Congress...this is a very valuable work for students of African-American and general US history." Canadian Journal of History/Annales canadiennes d'histoire, Norman D. Markowitz, Rutgers University

Product Description
As World War II drew to a close and the world awakened to the horrors wrought by white supremacists in Nazi Germany, the NAACP and African-American leaders sensed an opportunity to launch an offensive against the conditions of segregation and inequality in the United States. The "prize" they sought was not civil rights, but human rights. Only the human rights lexicon, shaped by the Holocaust and articulated by the United Nations, contained the language and the moral power to address not only the political and legal inequality but also the education, health care, housing, and employment needs that haunted the black community. The NAACP understood this and wielded its influence and resources to take its human rights agenda before the United Nations. But the onset of the Cold War and rising anti-communism allowed powerful southerners to cast those rights as Soviet-inspired and a threat to the American "ways of life." Enemies and friends excoriated the movement, and the NAACP retreated to a narrow civil rights agenda that was easier to maintain politically. Thus the Civil Rights Movement was launched with neither the language nor the mission it needed to truly achieve black equality. Carol Anderson is the recipient of major grants from the Ford Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies, and numerous awards for excellence in teaching. Her scholarly interests are 20th century American, African-American, and diplomatic history, and the impact of the Cold War and U.S. foreign policy on the struggle for black equality in particular. Her publications include "From Hope to Disillusion published in Diplomatic History and reprinted in The African-American Voice in U.S. Foreign Policy.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 314 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (April 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521531586
• ISBN-13: 978-0521531580
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #141,794 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Illusion of Substantive Racial Progress, June 20, 2003

By	Robert E. Weems Jr (Columbia, Missouri United States) - See all my reviews

For the sake of full disclosure, I'm a colleague of Carol Anderson's at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Yet, notwithstanding our friendship, I can objectively state that EYES OFF THE PRIZE is must reading for individuals seeking insights as to why America's racial problems persist.

More than a generation after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a disproportionate number of African Americans are undereducated, unemployed (or underemployed), and incarcerated. Anderson's exhaustively researched book persuasively suggests that the reason for continuing black inequality is that, during the crucial period covered in her book, African Americans changed (and were forced
to change) their focus from achieving HUMAN RIGHTS to achieving CIVIL RIGHTS.

This is not a book for the faint-of-heart. Anderson pulls no punches in telling her story of how African Americans lost sight of the "prize" of human rights. No doubt, some will find her analysis at times to be quite provocative. Yet, as a good historian, Anderson has not written a book to make people
feel good. She has written a book to make people think.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding Race in the U.S. today, February 17, 2004

By	Yolanda L. Comedy "ycomedy" (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book was incredible for several reasons. As an African American, I struggle to understand why so little has changed in relations between blacks and whites in this country and more importantly, why there seems to be a deeply entrenched systemic barrier to real progress (economic, political, social and cultural) for many African Americans. Eyes off the Prize highlights the enormous difference between struggling for human rights versus concentrating solely on civil rights-I'd never really thought about the fact that those aren't the same struggles.

Further, while it is obvious that the author did a tremendous amount of research, this book is a real "page turner." Much of what I learned by reading this book was far beyond what I've known previously and the book dispelled many of the myths surrounding civil rights leaders in this country. Lastly, the conclusions made sense to me-I didn't feel like I was reading a distant, scholarly book-I felt as though the author brought me along on an incredible journey of the African American struggle for dignity and fairness in a hostile land.

I really enjoyed the book and gave it to all my friends and family for Christmas last year.

For full disclosure, I went to high school with the author--that's why I was curious about the book--but it is certainly not why I read every word!

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the read!, October 24, 2008

By	P. V. Pelt "Growth Junkie" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Eyes Off the Prize removes the ambiguity about the history of the human rights movement. It is a well-documented account of history and struggle that captures the lived experiences of social movement actors of the era.