The Black community has historically suffered stasis on the political level. W.E.B. Du Bois
originally identified the source of the stasis as a contradiction of political goals within
individuals and Black culture. During the last century the development of African American
political organizations has institutionalized this contradiction of double aims. That
institutionalization is largely due to the energy and resources of two distinct and often
contradicting political traditions - Black nationalism and the Black American Jeremiad. It is
within a third tradition Black cultural pluralism that a possible discourse exists that can
address the stasis within the Black community. This book attempts to reconstruct the
development of this third tradition and posits it as the most viable source of Black political
development.
