The paradox of racial inequality in Barack Obama's America
Barack Obama, in his acclaimed campaign speech discussing the troubling
complexities of race in America today, quoted William Faulkner's famous
remark "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." In
Not Even Past, award-winning historian Thomas Sugrue examines the
paradox of race in Obama's America and how President Obama intends to
deal with it.
Obama's journey to the White House undoubtedly marks a watershed in the
history of race in America. Yet even in what is being hailed as the
post-civil rights era, racial divisions--particularly between blacks and
whites--remain deeply entrenched in American life. Sugrue traces Obama's
evolving understanding of race and racial inequality throughout his
career, from his early days as a community organizer in Chicago, to his
time as an attorney and scholar, to his spectacular rise to power as a
charismatic and savvy politician, to his dramatic presidential campaign.
Sugrue looks at Obama's place in the contested history of the civil
rights struggle; his views about the root causes of black poverty in
America; and the incredible challenges confronting his historic
presidency.
Does Obama's presidency signal the end of race in American life? In Not
Even Past, a leading historian of civil rights, race, and urban America
offers a revealing and unflinchingly honest assessment of the culture
and politics of race in the age of Obama, and of our prospects for a
postracial America.
