Separate and Unequal: African Americans and the US Federal Government
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Author Description
In this landmark book, Desmond King reveals and corrects a glaring gap at the epicenter of studies of racial inequality and political development in the United States: their blindness to the pivotal role of the state in making race. With historical precision and analytic rigor, he demonstrates how, for seven decades following the legal affirmation of the doctrine 'separate and equal' in 1896, the federal government both bolstered and expanded racial separation, in effect nationalizing the pattern of black subordination elaborated by Southern segregationists in the aftermath of abolition. The abiding social and symbolic marginality of the African American community in US society thus emerges, not as an inert legacy of slavery or a result of its alleged cultural failings, but as a creature of state policies studiously enforced by the federal bureaucracy until the 1960s. Enriched by a postscript that reviews and revises its core argument, this new edition of Separate and Unequal is one that every serious student of racial domination and comparative politics will want to read and engage.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This book investigates how the United States federal government actively institutionalized and enforced racial segregation and inequality for seven decades following the 1896 'separate but equal' doctrine. Desmond King, a Professorial Fellow in Government, utilizes extensive archival research to challenge the notion that racial marginalization was merely a legacy of slavery or cultural factors. Instead, he argues that federal bureaucracy and state-sanctioned policies were the primary architects of systemic subordination, effectively nationalizing segregationist practices until the 1960s.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Historical analysis of federal employment practices and administrative policies from 1896 to the 1960s.
- Examination of how federal programs disseminated segregated patterns across American society.
- Archival evidence documenting the deliberate role of the state in maintaining racial hierarchies.
- A critical postscript connecting historical state-sponsored exclusion to contemporary racial disparities in welfare and social policy.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars and political scientists recognize this work as a foundational text for understanding the state's role in racial formation. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the rigor of the historical documentation provided by the author.
Page Count:
384
Publication Date:
2007-09-21
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0195336224
ISBN-13:
9780195336221
History
African Americans
Civil Rights
Sociology
