African Americans in the U.S. Economy

Edited by Cecilia A. Conrad, John Whitehead, Patrick L. Mason, James Stewart

Publication date:

03 February 2005

Length of book:

416 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9780742543782

Over the last several decades, academic discourse on racial inequality has focused primarily on political and social issues with significantly less attention on the complex interplay between race and economics. African Americans in the U.S. Economy represents a contribution to recent scholarship that seeks to lessen this imbalance. This book builds upon, and significantly extends, the principles, terminology, and methods of standard economics and black political economy. Influenced by path-breaking studies presented in several scholarly economic journals, this volume is designed to provide a political-economic analysis of the past and present economic status of African Americans. The chapters in this volume represent the work of some of the nation's most distinguished scholars on the various topics presented. The individual chapters cover several well-defined areas, including black employment and unemployment, labor market discrimination, black entrepreneurship, racial economic inequality, urban revitalization, and black economic development. The book is written in a style free of the technical jargon that characterizes most economics textbooks. While the book is methodologically sophisticated, it is accessible to a wide range of students and the general public and will appeal to academicians and practitioners alike.

Chapter 1 Black Political Economy: An Introduction
Part 2 Part I: Slavery and the Early Formation of Black Labor
Chapter 3 The Critical Role of African Americans in the Development of the Pre-Civil War U.S. Economy
Chapter 3 The International Slave Trade
Chapter 4 Africa, Europe, and the Origins of Uneven Development: The Role of Slavery
Chapter 6 The Black Sharecropping System and Its Decline
Chapter 7 The Rise of the Black Industrial Working Class 1915-1918
Part 8 Part II: Organized Labor and African Americans
Chapter 8 Civil Rights and Organized Labor: The Case of the United Steelworkers of America, 1948-1970
Chapter 9 Racial Economic Inequality and Discrimination: Conservative and Liberal Paradigms Revisited
Chapter 9 An Uncertain Tradition: Blacks and Unions 1865-1925
Chapter 10 The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
Part 12 Part III: Theories of Racial Discrimination, Inequality, and Economic Progress
Chapter 13 The Black Political Economy Paradigm and the Dynamics of Racial Economic Inequality
Chapter 14 Marxist Theory of Racism and Racial Inequality
Chapter 14 Race and Gender Differences in the U.S. Labor Market: The Impact of Educational Attainment
Chapter 15 The Crowding Hypothesis
Chapter 16 Racial Inequality and African Americans' Disadvantage in the Credit and Capital Markets
Chapter 16 "Keeping People in Their Place:" The Economics of Racial Violence
Chapter 20 Persistent Racial Discrimination in the Labor Market
Chapter 20 Globalization, the Transformation of Capital, and the Erosion of Black and Latino Living Standards
Chapter 22 Changes in the Labor Market Status of Black Women, 1960-2000
Chapter 23 Single-Mother Families in the Black Community: Economic Context and Policies
Chapter 24 The Racial Wealth Gap
Chapter 27 Globalization and African Americans: A Focus on Public Employment
Chapter 28 Immigration and African Americans
Chapter 29 African American Intragroup Inequality and Corporate Globalization
Chapter 30 Globalization, Racism, and the Expansion of the American Penal System
Part 31 Part VI: Black Capitalism: Entrepreneurs and Consumers
Chapter 32 History of Black Capitalism
Chapter 33 Black-Owned Businesses: Trends and Prospects
Chapter 34 Black-Owned Banks: Past and Present
Chapter 35 "Bling-Bling" and Other Recent Trends in African American Consumerism
Chapter 36 A Critical Examination of the Political Economy of the Hip-Hop Industry
Chapter 37 Black Capitalism: Self-Help or Self-Delusion?
Chapter 39 Inner-City Economic Development and Revitalization: A Community-Building Approach
Chapter 39 Black Power: The Struggle for Parental Choice in Education
Chapter 40 School Choice: A Desperate Gamble
Chapter 41 The Black Youth Employment Problem Revisited
Chapter 42 Employment and Training Solutions for the Economically Disadvantaged
Chapter 43 Racism in the U.S. Welfare Policy: A Human Rights Issue
Chapter 43 African American Athletes and Urban Revitalization: African American Athletes as a Funding Source for Inner-City Investments
Part 44 Part VIII: Understanding Black Reparations
Chapter 45 Past Due: The African American Quest fort Reparations
Chapter 46 The Theory of Restitution
Chapter 47 The Economics of Reparations
Part 48 Part IV: Current Economic Status of African Americans: Hard Evidence of Economic Discrimination and Inequality
Part 49 Part V: Globalization and Its Impact on the Economic Well-Being of African Americans and Latinos
Chapter 50 Combating Gentrification through Equitable Development
Part 51 Part VII: Education, Employment, Training, and Social Welfare: Alternative Public Policy Approaches in the Struggle to Achieve Racial Equality
Chapter 51 The Black Church and Community Economic Development
Chapter 52 Black Patronage of Black-Owned Businesses and Black Employment
Part 53 Part IX: African American Economic Development and Urban Revitalization Strategies

African Americans in the U.S. Economy is an invaluable collection of essays for high school teachers, college professors, politicians, activists, and all people interested in the struggle for racial justice in the United States. The editors are to be congratulated for assembling an outstanding volume covering a very wide range of historical, theoretical, empirical, and policy issues relevant to the economic status of African Americans.