Anti-Racism in U.S. History

HERBERT APTHEKER has taught at many leading institutions, including Bryn Mawr College and Yale University. He has just retired from his post at the University of California (Berkeley). The author of over eighty volumes, his best known works include American Negro Slave Revolts (1943), A Documentary History of Negro People (4 vols., to 1945), Abolitionism (1989), and Literary Legacy of Du Bois (1989). He is the editor of the Du Bois Correspondence (3 vols.), Du Bois' Complete Published Writings (37 vols.), and four volumes of his previously unpublished writings.

Many books, both popular and scholarly, have examined racism in the United States, but this unique volume is the first to examine the existence of anti-racism in the first two hundred years of U.S. history. Herbert Aptheker challenges the view that racism was universally accepted by whites. His book thoroughly debunks the myth that white people never cared about the plight of African-Americans until just before the outbreak of the Civil War.Covering the period from the 1600s through the 1860s, Aptheker begins with a short introduction and a questioning of racism's pervasiveness, taking examples of anti-racism from the literature. He then devotes sections to sexual relations, racism and anti-racism, to joint struggles to reject racism, and to a discussion of Gregoire, Banneker, and Jeffersonianism. Next he considers inferiority as viewed by poets, preachers, and teachers and by entrepreneuers, seamen, and cowboys. After a consideration of the Quakers, he turns his attention to the American and French revolutions and racism and to the Republic's early years and racism. Aptheker then devotes several sections to Abolitionism and concludes the work with the the Crisis Decade, the Civil War, Emancipation, and anti-racism. This book by a well-known scholar in the field will be of interest to all concerned with U.S. history and African American history.

...will provoke debate and stimulate reevaluation...of the character and extent of anti-racism in the nation's history...an important and wise book which resonates with impressive scholarship and an impassioned affirmation that racism can be fought and eradicated, that black and white unity can be battled for and won. Science & Society

IntroductionAnti-Racism: Denial and DistortionQuestioning Racism's PervasivenessAnti-Racism's Presence: Examples from the LiteratureSexual RelationsRejecting Racism by Joint StruggleGrégoire, Banneker, and Jeffersonianism"Inferiority" and Poets, Preachers, and Teachers"Inferiority" and Entrepreneurs, Seamen, and CowboysFrom Egypt to Philosophes to QuakersThe American and French RevolutionsThe Republic's Early YearsThe New Century's YouthLane Rebels and Black RebelsAbolitionism and RacismImmortals of Literature and Martyrs for FreedomFrom Liberty Party to Republican PartyThe Crisis DecadeThe Civil War and EmancipationBibliographic CommentIndex