Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-250) and index.
Contents:
Attitudes, structures, and "levers of change" : the social science of prejudice and race relations -- "Data and not trouble" : the Rockefeller Foundation and the social science of race relations -- The individual and the "general situation" : defining the race problem at the University of Chicago's Committee on Education, Training, and Research in Race Relations -- The mature individual or the mature society : social theory, social action, and the race problem at Fisk University's Race Relations Institutes -- "Education for racial understanding" and the meanings of integration in Howard University's Journal of Negro education -- "To inoculate Americans against the virus of hate" : brotherhood, the war on intolerance, and the National Conference of Christians and Jews.
Summary:
Americans believe strongly in the socially transformative power of education, and the idea that we can challenge racial injustice by reducing white prejudice has long been a core component of this faith. How did we get here? In this first-rate intellectual history, Leah N. Gordon Jumps into this and other big questions about race, power, and social justice. To answer these questions, From Power to Prejudice examines American academia - both black and white - in the 1940s and '50s. Gordon presents four competing visions of the race problem and documents how an individualistic paradigm, which presented white attitudes as the source of racial injustice, gained traction. A number of factors, Gordon shows, explain racial individualism's postwar influence: individuals were easier to measure than social forces; psychology was well funded; studying political economy was difficult amid McCarthyism; and individualism was useful in legal attacks on segregation. Highlighting vigorous midcentury debate over the meanings of racial justice and equality, From Power to Prejudice reveals how one particular vision of social justice won out among many contenders.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.