Historian - Political Theorist - Journalist - Human Rights Activist

Dr. Manning Marable is one of America’s most influential and widely read scholars. Since 1993, Dr. Marable has been Professor of Public Affairs, Political Science, History and African-American Studies at Columbia University in New York City. For ten years, Dr. Marable was founding director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University, from 1993 to 2003. Under Dr. Marable’s leadership, the Institute became one of the nation’s most prestigious centers of scholarship on the black American experience.

Born in 1950, Dr. Marable received his A.B. degree from Earlham College in 1971, his M.A. degree in American History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1972 and his Ph.D. in American History from the University of Maryland in 1976. Before coming to Columbia, Dr. Marable was previously Senior Research Associate of Africana Studies at Cornell University (1980-1982); Professor of History and Economics, and Director of the Race Relations Institute at Fisk University (1982-1983); Professor of Sociology and founding director of Colgate University’s Africana and Latin American Studies Program (1983-1986); Chair of the Black Studies Department at Ohio State University (1987-1989); and Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder (1989-1993).
 

Living Black History: How Reimagining the African-American Past Can Remake America’s Racial Future
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ISBN: 0465043895
Format: Hardcover, 288pp
Pub. Date: January 2006
Publisher: Basic Civitas Books

Read an AALBC.com Book Review

In this sharp, savvy collection, several pieces of which began as W.E.B. Du Bois lectures at Harvard in 2004, Columbia University scholar Marable (The Autobiography of Medgar Evers) declares that "being true to black history... means accepting and interpreting its totality." Living black history, Marable posits, requires "reconstruct[ing] America's memory about itself" through projects that give voice to the voiceless. Marable takes a historian's pleasure in reproaching those (like Kweisi Mfume and Henry Louis Gates Jr.) who discount Du Bois's commitment to radicalism. He similarly admonishes those, from the black middle class or hip-hop "Malcolmologists," who seize on Malcolm X's resistance without recognizing-as Marable does in dissecting Alex Haley's unreliable Autobiography and criticizing the Shabazz family-Malcolm X's unquenched, pan-Africanist voice. An essay on lawyer Robert Carter, who helped win Brown v. Board of Education, prompts the author's reflection on gains blacks have made in access to educational institutions, and also his lament that Brown has not helped the working class or the poor. But Marable offers no targeted solution for African-American uplift. Rather, given his socialist leanings-less articulated here than in other works-he supports cross-racial and class-based efforts to fight structural racism. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

The Great Wells of Democracy: Reconstructing Race in America
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ISBN: 0465043941
Format: Paperback, 365pp
Pub. Date: November 2003
Publisher: Basic Books

One of America's most influential historians and interpreters of the black experience reinvents racial politics for the twenty-first century.

In his boldest and most accessible book to date, Manning Marable lays out a new way to think about the past and the future of race in America. Exploding traditional lines of left and right, Marable stakes out such controversial and seemingly incompatible positions as the re-enfranchisement of felons, state support for faith-based institutions, reparations for slavery that systematically inject capital into the black community, and a reconfiguration of racial identities that accounts for the increasingly multi-racial nature of our society. He exhorts us to construct a new political language and practical public policies to bridge the racial divide—so that we do no less than reinvent the democratic project called America.

Freedom: A Photographic History of the African American Struggle
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by Leith Mullings, Manning Marable

ISBN: 0714845175
Format: Paperback, 512pp
Pub. Date: April 2005
Publisher: Phaidon Press, Incorporated

From the bonds of slavery to the Civil Rights Movement, from the Deep South to the northern metropolises, from the Harlem Renaissance to the riots of South Central Los Angeles, Freedom tells of the African American struggle for equality from the first photographic records in nineteenth century all the way to the present. It is organized chronologically in five sections with introductory essays and narrative captions by noted scholars Manning Marable and Leith Mullings. The array and selection of photographs, many never seen before, reveal the journey in all its complexity and nuance, covering the struggle in its many different aspects - political, social, economic, and cultural. Highly relevant today, the photographs tell of the tremendous courage, determination, and power of a people fighting for a common goal.

Dispatches from the Ebony Tower: Intellectuals Confront the African American Experience Manning Marable (Editor)
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ISBN: 0231114761
Format: Hardcover, 293pp
Pub. Date: March 2000
Publisher: Columbia University Press

What constitutes black studies and where does this discipline stand at the end of the twentieth century? In this wide-ranging and original volume, Manning Marable - one of the leading scholars of African American history - gathers key materials from contemporary thinkers who interrogate the richly diverse content and multiple meanings of the collective experiences of black folk.

Here are numerous voices expressing very different political, cultural, and historical views, from black conservatives, to black separatists, to blacks who advocate radical democratic transformation. Here are topics ranging from race and revolution in Cuba, to the crack epidemic in Harlem, to Afrocentrism and its critics. All of these voices, however, are engaged in some aspect of what Marable sees as the essential triad of the black intellectual tradition: describing the reality of black life and experiences, critiquing racism and stereotypes, or proposing positive steps for the empowerment of black people.

Highlights from Dispatches from the Ebony Tower:

Introduction: Black Studies and the Black Intellectual Tradition, by Manning Marable

1. One: Theorizing the Black World: Race in the Postcolonial, Post-Civil Rights Era
2. Toward an Effective Antiracism, by Nikhil Pal Singh
3. The Political Moment in Jamaica: The Dimensions of the Hegemonic Dissolution, by Brian Meeks
4. Sandoms and Other Exotic Women: Prostitution and Race in the Caribbean, by Kamala Kempadoo
5. Race and Revolution in Cuba: African-American Perspectives, by Manning Marable
6. The Fire This Time: Harlem and Its Discontents at the Turn of the Century, by Johanna Fernandez
7. Crack Cocaine and Harlem's Health., by Beverly Xaviera Watkins and Mindy Thompson Fullilove

Two: Mapping African-American Studies

8. African-American Studies and the "Warring Ideals": The Color Line Meets the Borderlands, by Johnnella E. Butler
9. The Future of Black Studies: Political Communities and the "Talented Tenth", by Joy James
10. Black Studies and the Question of Class, by Bill Fletcher Jr.
11. Black Studies: A Critical Reassessment, by Maulana Karenga
12. Black Studies Revisited, by Martin Kilson
13. Theorizing Black Studies: The Continuing Role of Community Service in the Study of Race and Class, by James Jennings
14. A Debate on Activism in Black Studies, by Henry Louis Gates Jr. & Manning Marable

Three: Afrocentrism and Its Critics

14. Afrocentrism, Race, and Reason., by Molefi Kete Asante
15. Afrocentrics, Afro-elitists, and Afro-eccentrics: The Polarization of Black Studies Since the Students Struggles of the Sixties, by Melba Joyce Boyd
16. Reclaiming Culture: The Dialectics of Identity, by Leith Mullings
17. Afrocentrism, Culture Nationalism, and the Problem with Essentialist Definitions of Race, Gender, and Sexuality, by Barbara Ransby
18. Afrocentricity and the American Dream, by Lee D. Baker
19. Multinational, Multicultural America Versus White Supremacy, by Amiri Baraka

Four: Race And Ethnicity in American Life

20. The Problematic of Ethnic Studies, by Manning Marable
21. Prophetic Alternatives: A Conversation with Cornel West
22. Race in American Life: A Conversation with John Hope Franklin

Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, and Renewal
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An African American Anthology, Manning Marable (Editor), Leith Mullings (Editor)

ISBN: 084768346X
Format: Paperback, 704pp
Pub. Date: February 2003
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

One of America's prominent historians and a noted feminist bring together the most important political writings and testimonials from African Americans over three centuries. This unique volume captures the struggle and hope persistent in the movement for social justice. The voices of famous activists like Du Bois, Douglass, and Malcolm X, joined by those of laborers, women, and other African American citizens, reveal how the historical record of oppression and resistance coalesced into a national and international movement.

Black Leadership
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ISBN: 0231107463
Format: Hardcover, 288pp
Pub. Date: March 1998
Publisher: Columbia University Press

The history of the black struggle for civil rights and political and economic equality in America is deeply tied to the strategies, agendas, and styles of black leaders. In this compelling work, Manning Marable examines different models of black leadership and the figures who embody them: from the integrationist approaches of Booker T. Washington and Harold Washington, to the nationlist separatism of Louis Farrakhan, and, finally, the democratic transformation championed by W. E. B. Du Bois. Marable's analysis of all three models criticizes the deep conservatism of both integrationists and national separatists, and praises Du Bois's radical democratic vision of linking racial equality with the struggle for political and economic liberty for all. This original account of black leadership in the United States reveals what is at stake in terms of politics, economics, and culture, both in the black community and in America at large.

Black Liberation in Conservative America
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ISBN: 0896085597
Format: Paperback, 286pp
Pub. Date: March 1997
Publisher: South End Press

What social and economic factors have led to the current conservative mood of the country, and how can Black Americans navigate in these dangerous times?

Publishers Weekly
"[T]o end racism, we must end inequality," Marable declares sensibly, but his laundry list of those victimized (not just blacks but Latinos, women, working people, etc.) ignores the hard work of coalition building. He reminds us that prisons are "vast warehouses for the poor and unemployed," while white-collar criminals rarely go to prison. He suggests we recognize a link between abortion and poverty, though his formulation ignores what some might call abortions of convenience for the middle class. He supports the idea of Afrocentric education as a way to help end violence among African American youth, though he criticizes the essentialism of college students who say their ethnic studies should be limited to their group. Rejecting the two major political parties, Marable suggests that proportional representation might enable a new party to grow. Noting that the defining issues of the civil rights movement no longer exist, and that Louis Farrakhan articulates the untreated rage of oppressed blacks, Marable thoughtfully calls for a new black youth protest movement, a new center for political strategy and a regular public opinion poll to assess the views of black America.

Speaking Truth to Power: Essays on Race, Resistance, and Radicalism
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ISBN: 0813388287
Format: Paperback, 304pp
Pub. Date: January 1996
Publisher: Perseus Publishing

Library Journal
In 26 pieces published previously between 1982 and 1995 and accompanied by a fresh introductory autobiography, Marable shares his unswerving exploration of a common ground for liberation, peace, and radical democracy. His cutting commentaries on the superstructure of capitalist oppression range from Alabama to Zimbabwe, from Chicago's Harold Washington to Tchula's Eddie Carthan, the first black mayor of a Mississippi Delta town, from the 1983 anniversary March on Washington to the 1995 Million Man March. Seeking to mobilize a progressive, multiracial, internationalist, grass-roots coalition, the Columbia University history professor and director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies preaches against the hierarchy and violence of division by race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexual preference. Readers of any of his previous ten books such as How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America (South End Pr., 1983) will recognize Marable's continuing call for an appropriate democratic strategy to transform society to the mandates of justice. Highly recommended for academic social science and political theory collections. —Thomas Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe

Beyond Black and White: Rethinking Race in American Politics and Society
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ISBN: 1859840493
Format: Paperback, 236pp
Pub. Date: October 1996
Publisher: Verso

Confronted with a renascent right and the continuing burden of grotesque inequality, Manning Marable argues that the black struggle must move beyond previous strategies for social change. The politics of black nationalism, which advocates the building of separate black institutions, is an insufficient response. The politics of integration, characterized by traditional middle-class organizations like the NAACP and Urban League, seeks only representation without genuine power. Instead, a transformationist approach is required, one that can embrace the unique cultural identity of African-Americans while restructuring power and privilege in American society. Only a strategy of radical democracy can ultimately deconstruct race as a social force. "Beyond Black and White" brilliantly dissects the politics of race and class in the US of the 1990s. Topics include: the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill controversy; the factors behind the rise and fall of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition; Benjamin Chavis and the conflicts within the NAACP; and the national debate over affirmative action. Marable outlines the current debates in the black community between liberals, "Afrocentrists," and the advocates of social transformation. He advances a political vision capable of drawing together minorities into a majority of the poor and oppressed, a majority which can throw open the portals of power and govern in its own name.

How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: Problems in Race, Political Economy, and Society
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ISBN: 0896085791
Format: Paperback, 353pp
Pub. Date: December 1999
Publisher: South End Press
Edition Description: REVISED

How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America, Updated Edition Problems in Race, Political Economy, and Society Manning Marable A classic study of race and class in the United States, Marable's book has become a standard text for courses in African American politics and history. In this new edition of his classic work, Marable examines developments in the political economy of racism in the United States and assesses shifts in the American political terrain since the first edition was published in 1983.


 

Related Links

Official Web Site for Dr. Manning Marable
http://www.manningmarable.net/

 

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