UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

Against the Odds
Scholars Who Challenged Racism in the Twentieth Century
Book Jacket: "Against the Odds" edited by B. P. Bowser and L. Kushnick

Edited by Benjamin P. Bowser
and Louis Kushnick
with Paul Grant

Personal accounts by leading scholar-activists
in the fight for racial equality

A Choice Outstanding Academic Book

Over the course of the past century the struggle against racism took many forms, from petitions and lawsuits to sit-ins and marches. This book records the testimony of eleven scholar-activists who challenged prevailing racial beliefs and practices while engaging in resistance and reform. Included in this group are nine African Americans (Kenneth B. Clark, St. Clair Drake, W. E. B. Du Bois, John Hope Franklin, John Glover Jackson, Hylan Lewis, Frank Snowden Jr., and Robert C. Weaver); one Sri Lankan who lives and works in Britain (A. Sivanandan); and one white American (Herbert Aptheker).

Most of these men began their careers before World War II, in a time when biological conceptions of race dominated public policy and severely limited opportunities available to people of color. By struggling with these impediments to their personal and professional lives, each in his own way helped redefine race as the social and cultural construct it has always been.

To highlight both the similarities and the differences in their experiences, the editors asked each of the subjects the same set of general questions about formative influences, major obstacles, and principal accomplishments. These were followed by more narrowly focused queries about specific writings. Most of the responses were recorded on tape as interviews; several were submitted as written reminiscences; and one, the essay on Du Bois, was the shared recollection of two associates who had worked closely with him for many years.

"This collection of autobiographical and biographical essays, by a cross-section of scholars who challenged racism, is a rare jewel. . . . It would be an excellent supplementary text for courses on race relations, social inequality, institutional racism, and social movements and social change."
Contemporary Sociology

"A must for all libraries. . . . These interview-essays review scholarly lives in revealing detail. Readers discover much new about individual scholars; more importantly, we learn much about the racist history against which black scholars had to struggle with great difficulty. . . . [The editors] develop excellent opening and concluding overviews. . . .Summing up: Essential."

Choice

BENJAMIN P. BOWSER is professor of sociology and social services at California State University, Hayward.

LOUIS KUSHNICK is professor in race relations and director of the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Archive at the University of Manchester.

PAUL GRANT is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Wolverhampton.

Black Studies / American History
280 pp.
$24.95s paper, ISBN 978-1-55849-474-9
October 2004
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