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The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power (Politics and Society in Modern America) Paperback – August 2, 2016

by Leah Wright Rigueur (Author)

109 ratings

Part of: Politics and Society in Modern America (59 books)

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The story of black conservatives in the Republican Party from the New Deal to Ronald Reagan

Covering more than four decades of American social and political history, The Loneliness of the Black Republican examines the ideas and actions of black Republican activists, officials, and politicians, from the era of the New Deal to Ronald Reagan's presidential ascent in 1980. Their unique stories reveal African Americans fighting for an alternative economic and civil rights movement―even as the Republican Party appeared increasingly hostile to that very idea. Black party members attempted to influence the direction of conservatism―not to destroy it, but rather to expand the ideology to include black needs and interests.

As racial minorities in their political party and as political minorities within their community, black Republicans occupied an irreconcilable position―they were shunned by African American communities and subordinated by the GOP. In response, black Republicans vocally, and at times viciously, critiqued members of their race and party, in an effort to shape the attitudes and public images of black citizens and the GOP. And yet, there was also a measure of irony to black Republicans' "loneliness": at various points, factions of the Republican Party, such as the Nixon administration, instituted some of the policies and programs offered by black party members. What's more, black Republican initiatives, such as the fair housing legislation of senator Edward Brooke, sometimes garnered support from outside the Republican Party, especially among the black press, Democratic officials, and constituents of all races. Moving beyond traditional liberalism and conservatism, black Republicans sought to address African American racial experiences in a distinctly Republican way.

The Loneliness of the Black Republican provides a new understanding of the interaction between African Americans and the Republican Party, and the seemingly incongruous intersection of civil rights and American conservatism.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"James P. Hanlan Book Award, New England Historical Association"

"Winner of the 2017 Crader Family Book Prize in American Values, Crader Family Endowment at Southeast Missouri State University"

"[B]lack Republicans are perceived to be the token black person in a group of Republicans, and the token Republican in a group of black people. This sense of isolation has shaped the black Republican experience for decades. Their plight is chronicled exceptionally well in The Loneliness of the Black Republican by Harvard Kennedy School professor Leah Wright Rigueur. Her thorough examination traces the winding journey of black Republicans from the inception of the New Deal to the election of Ronald Reagan."---Theodore R. Johnson, The Atlantic

"The Loneliness of the Black Republican is meticulous, well-crafted, and consistently astute about the fractious recent history of the Grand Old Party."---Artur Davis, Weekly Standard

"Leah Wright Rigueur's book, The Loneliness of the Black Republican, provides an intellectual and thought-provoking voice to this intriguing debate. . . . [H]er well-researched work is evenhanded--and, at times, sympathetic. In many ways, it's the most significant book ever written about the collapse of black support in the Republican party."---Michael Taube, Washington Times

"This book adds much needed depth to the understanding of the diversity of black politics during these years (1930s to 1980)." ― Choice

"Meticulously researched . . . . Rigueur . . . gives us one of the first attempts at understanding who black Republicans were, the values they held, and how they engaged in party politics."---James Wolfinger, Journal of American History

"Rigueur provides a powerful addition to wider scholarship on black political behavior."---Corey D. Fields, Political Science Quarterly

"There is much to be admired in Leah Wright Rigueur's groundbreaking work and her bravery in tackling a topic that has been dismissed as insignificant by historians for decades."---Joshua Farrington, H-Net Reviews

Review

"African American Republicans! An absurd contradiction in terms? Not so, as historian Leah Wright Rigueur tells us in her riveting, splendidly well-researched, and illuminating book. She finds many black conservatives and explains how and why they became such political contrarians."―Donald T. Critchlow, Arizona State University

"While this book offers the definitive history of African Americans in the twentieth-century Republican Party, it also tells so much more. It provides a fresh and fascinating account of activists who frequently failed to influence their own party's trajectory, but helped chart out the broader path of black neoliberalism, which continues to have a profound impact in the Obama era."―Paul Frymer, Princeton University

"No previous book has analyzed the role of African Americans in the Republican Party in such a thematically and chronologically diverse manner, and it challenges us to rethink the party's history. Developing a distinctive and interesting argument, this book is important not only for historians, but for Americans generally."―Robert Mason, University of Edinburgh

"Wright Rigueur has produced an extraordinary political and social history of the experiences of African Americans in the modern Republican Party and her book is the first to take seriously the role black elites played in the party's internecine politics. With impressive archival research and rich accounts, this book makes a major contribution to history, African American studies, and political science."―Alvin B. Tillery, Jr., Northwestern University

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Princeton University Press
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 2, 2016
Edition ‏ : ‎ Reprint
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0691173648
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0691173641
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.44 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1 x 9 inches
Part of series ‏ : ‎ Politics and Society in Modern America
Best Sellers Rank: #748,479 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #405 in Political Parties (Books)
- #2,422 in African American Demographic Studies (Books)
- #2,829 in History & Theory of Politics
Customer Reviews:
109 ratings

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Leah Wright Rigueur

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Leah Wright Rigueur is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Her award-winning first book, The Loneliness of the Black Republican (2015), looks at the tumultuous relationship between the GOP and racial minorities. Leah's research, writing, and commentary has been featured in numerous outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Root, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, the Atlantic, and the New Republic.

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Customers find the book thoroughly researched and appreciate its analysis of an underlooked group in politics. They consider it a great read, with one customer noting it's a must-read for students of party politics.

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6 customers mention "Research quality"6 positive0 negative

Customers praise the book's thorough research and respectful approach to documenting an underlooked group in American politics.

"A very thoroughly researched and respectful history and analysis of an underlooked group in politics...." Read more

"Very thorough history of the black republican. Dr. Wright Riguer does a wonderful job making an academic read, enjoyable reading." Read more

"...It was enlightening but surely not uplifting...." Read more

"Extremely well researched. The author is not a black republican but I appreciate her diligence." Read more

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Customers find the book to be of great quality, with one customer noting it's a must-read for students of party politics.

"Seems to be a great book. I haven't completed it as of yet though." Read more

"...Dr. Wright Riguer does a wonderful job making an academic read, enjoyable reading." Read more

"A must read for all students of party politics in the context of race." Read more

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Adwoa
Important work to understand black republicans in America
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2019
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Very thorough history of the black republican. Dr. Wright Riguer does a wonderful job making an academic read, enjoyable reading.

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9 people found this helpful

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Jay Reader
A very thoroughly researched and respectful history and analysis of an underlooked group in politics.
Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2015
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
A very thoroughly researched and respectful history and analysis of an underlooked group in politics. Lessons to be learned for both democrats and republicans. Should have a long shelf life as a definitive reference on the topic.

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17 people found this helpful

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C. M. Stahl
Democrats have not exactly changed the lives of the poor and working class (regardless of race or ethnicity) during ...
Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2016
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Not long ago Donald Trump speaking to a nearly all white audience, asked American blacks “What do you have got to lose?” While he typically is bloviating about something or another he actually had a point. Sort of that is. Democrats have not exactly changed the lives of the poor and working class (regardless of race or ethnicity) during the last 80 years. It is also true as the author pointed out many times in the book, that it is central to all people to have a two party system and that Black America is not one big monolith that can be counted on to act in certain expected political ways. The author deftly answered the question in this book published a year prior to Trump asking it.

The Republican Party at its best has made some gesture toward the black middle class but as the author showed us, those actions have all too often been for display value. During the last three primaries the Republican Party has paraded black candidates that no intelligent person could take seriously. Alan Keyes, Herman Cain and Ben Carson have all been unelectable even in this 2016 circus of an election year. The Republican Party put them on display as if to show America that they are an inclusive party. No one was fooled by those candidates except perhaps themselves.

So while there was no suggestion on the author’s part that the Democratic Party was much different, her focus was on how black Republicans fared during a forty four year period from 1936 until 1980. It was enlightening but surely not uplifting. The book is surfeit with footnotes and appendices as a reader would expect from a professor as the author is. Her notions about this history are difficult to dispute for that reason.

It seems that in 1932, black voters were very much for Herbert Hoover, who many historians have cast as one of our nation’s most ineffectual presidents. In that year many voters were still voting for the “Party of Lincoln” so it was not surprising. However during the four years of pitiful efforts to get the country out of the Depression, black voters were eager for the Democrat Franklin Roosevelt to take the helm. His New Deal efforts at least offered some solace from the conditions that prevailed. His First Lady Eleanor, was outspoken about racial equality so certainly this played well with the black electorate.

The author did not dwell significantly on the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower or John Kennedy, both heavily revered in this country, one for his war time work and the other for being assassinated. She did go into full swing when in 1964 Barry Goldwater ran his disastrous campaign.

Black Republicans could stand behind Eisenhower and unfortunately take whatever leavings he would provide. They were meager but he gained some measure of respect by sending troops to counter Orval Faubus in Little Rock when in 1954 Brown v. Board of Education occurred.

When Goldwater ran his vote against the Civil Rights Act and his super hawk mentality, these decisions outweighed his NACCP membership and very few black Republicans stood by him. They got Lyndon Johnson instead and not only did he preside while civil rights and voting acts were signed into legislation but he also had the civil rights movement and the Viet Nam War to deal with. The Civil Rights movement demanded faster action than he and his administration felt they could provide.

When Johnson decided not to run for election it opened the door for Richard Nixon who courted the black vote and gained many adherents from that constituency in the early stages. He made a large number of black appointments to high level government positions. As time went on he also dismissed a large number of them, adopted the “Southern Strategy” and presented both Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell as potential Supreme Court members. Each had a solid record of white supremacy. Black Republicans who imagined an economic alternative to the civil rights movement were again thwarted and depressed.

The Ford administration with all of the president’s warm smiles and affable personality was nearly despicable based on the author’s description. Ford’s agenda like most Republicans was less to get the black vote than to prevent the Democrats from getting it. Once he was defeated in 1976 by Jimmy Carter, black voters could tell themselves “Starting tomorrow, everything will be the same.” It was and Wright-Rigueur made this poignant by describing and incident in Brooklyn where Jimmy Carter made a speech in the midst of squalor where he described what his administration would do to amend the local blight. Ronald Reagan went to the same location four years later where the conditions had only worsened to point out ironically how the Democratic administration essentially lied.

Reagan had been considered as a far right and bigoted man and this got to him emotionally. The author described his strident outbursts defending himself against charges of racism. Then he did what everyone in the Republican Party who was not black pretty much did, and that was to ensure that “Starting tomorrow, everything will be the same.”

Wright-Rigueur describes the American black community as largely falling in step with the ideology of the Republican Party at the personal level. They are mainly religious, family oriented and economically motivated by capitalism. The black ministry was amongst the most vocal against Proposition 8 in California a few years ago. But there is a difference between black Republicans and all Republicans. Black ones want to improve the lot of the entire race using entrepreneurialism like their confederates but they want regulations prohibiting discrimination against those efforts. Their Republican bedfellows want no regulating restrictions at all. The author used the political biography of Edward Brooke to make her case.

This is quite a dilemma and exists today as it did during the period that the author selected for her book. While reading it I came to understand the thoughts of black Republicans which on the surface seems a paradox. It really is not as she informed us. Yet in the view of this reader there is not much different today from what she described in 1936. Yeah, incrementally so but that was eighty years ago.

The black Republican has been very much for civil rights but felt that the cause is best served by entrepreneurialism unfettered by black codes or the “Southern Strategy”. They are for the much mocked notion of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps”. The conditions have not allowed one to do so. Many of those who have become wealthy have also shunned controversy. Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson had little to say about “bootstraps”.

When Trump bellows, “What have you got to lose?” the better question might be “What have you got to gain?” The near future does not appear to be any shinier than the past.

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Dianne M. Daniels
A book that Republican leadership needs to read
Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2015
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Bought this as a gift from my husband, who is a Black Republican living in Connecticut. He feels the book says all the things that "we" have been trying to tell the party for YEARS. He wishes that he could get some of those in leadership at the top of the State Central Committee to read it.

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29 people found this helpful

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Kerri
Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2016
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
A must read for all students of party politics in the context of race.

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3 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer
Lots of facts!
Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Extremely well researched. The author is not a black republican but I appreciate her diligence.

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4 people found this helpful

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Perhaps
Black Republicans
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Print in book is horrible have not finished but well researched & informative!

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One person found this helpful

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DC Reader
Good quality
Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2016
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Great condition

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