Table of Contents

Part I. Introduction: Consistency … the Hobgoblin of Little Minds: 1. The meaning of struggle; Part II. Frederick Douglass: The Individualist as Race Man: 2. Where honor is due: Frederick Douglass and representative man; 3. Writing freely? Douglass's racialization, and desexualization; 4. Frederick Douglass, superstar; Part III. Alexander Crummell: the Anglophile as Afrocentrist: 5. Africa, Christianity, and civilization; 6. Crummell and the new south; 7. Crummell, Du Bois, and presentism; Part IV. Booker Taliafero Washington: The Idealist as Materialist: 8. Booker T. Washington and the meaning of progress; 9. Protestant ethic versus conspicuous consumption; Part V. Burghardt Du Bois: The Democrat as Authoritarian: 10. Du Bois on religion and art; 11. Du Bois and democracy: a tragic realism; 12. Du Bois protestant perfectionism and progressive pragmatism; Part VI. Marcus Moziah Garvey: The Realist as Romantic: 13. The birth of tragedy: Garvey's heroic struggles; 14. Becoming history: Garvey and the genius of his age; Part VII. Conclusion: Saving Heroes from their Admirers: 15. Reality, contradiction and the meaning of progress.

Promotional Information

Essays that focus on the complexity of the thought of five major African-American intellectuals.

Reviews

'With the provocative insight and erudition that we have come to expect from him, Wilson Moses analyzes contradiction in the thought of such prominent black intellectuals as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and W. E. B. Du Bois in relation to the fundamental conflicts of American political culture and the human condition.' Kevin Gaines, University of Michigan 'Creative Conflict is an analytical masterpiece of comparable originality.' David Levering Lewis, New York University '... intellectually rigorous and combative study ...' Journal of American Studies