Sublime

“I believe that the Negro’s struggle for equality in America is essentially revolutionary. While most Negroes—in their hearts—unquestionably seek only to enjoy the fruits of American society as it now exists, their quest cannot objectively be satisfied within the framework of existing political and economic relations.”

Not getting the Democratic presidential nomination that year had proven to be something of a blessing: the election results had convincingly reaffirmed that no one could have beaten Eisenhower. But the lesson he had had pounded into him in Chicago—that you couldn’t win the nomination as the “southern candidate,” that you had to have substantial

What would he do when someone called him “Boy” instead of “Mr. Ford”? How would he handle a manager who thought Negroes had no place in a corporation like IBM? Would he fight back when a group of engineers sought to foul a project to make him look bad?

The injustices of Black people are well known to us.

W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963), our fourth tour guide, initially adopted Garrison’s racist idea. But he also stood at the forefront of antiracist ideas, challenging Jim Crow’s rise in the late nineteenth century.

This is really the form that the dilemma takes. It is not solely a question of keeping the body alive; it is rather how not to be killed. Not to be killed becomes the great end, and morality takes its meaning from that center. Until that center is shifted, nothing real can be accomplished. It is the uncanny and perhaps unwitting recognition of this