Derrick E. White – författare

During the four decades separating the presidencies of Lyndon B. Johnson and Barack Obama, the meaning of civil rights has become increasingly complex. Civil rights leaders made great strides in breaking down once-impermeable racial barriers, but they also suffered many political setbacks in their attempts to remedy centuries of discrimination and oppression as race and the ascendancy of conservatism in America became inextricably intertwined.

This pioneering collection of essays chronicles the ways in which presidential politics have shaped black experiences in the aftermath of the civil rights legislation passed in the 1960s, from the experimental and transitional nature of Richard Nixon''s policies and the transformative aspect of Ronald Reagan''s presidency to the constraints that Reagan''s legacy placed on Bill Clinton and the continued efforts to disenfranchise black and poor people in the twenty-first century.

The Challenge of Blackness examines the history and legacy of the Institute of the Black World (IBW), one of the most important Black Freedom Struggle organizations to emerge in the aftermath of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

A think tank based in Atlanta, the IBW sought to answer King''s question "Where do we go from here?" Its solution was to organize a broad array of leading Black activists, scholars, and intellectuals to find ways to combine the emerging academic discipline of Black Studies with the Black political agenda.

Throughout the 1970s, debates over race and class in the Unites States grew increasingly hostile, and the IBW''s approach was ultimately unable to challenge the growing conservatism. By using the IBW as the lens through which to view these turbulent years, Derrick White provides an exciting new interpretation of the immediate post-civil rights years in America.