Strategies for cooperation in ethnically and racially diverse neighborhoods.

Race and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century Atlanta

This accessible, challenging discussion of race relations looks at how institutions shape individual experience and asks how we can prevent a violent splintering of American society along racial lines in the 21st century. Arguing that the best way to understand race relations is through the personal accounts of individuals as they go through the life cycle, this highly readable book uses real life stories to illuminate how families, peer groups, and workplaces influence views about other racial and ethnic groups. The authors hope to inspire readers to intervene and counteract negative perceptions of racial difference through their open, frank discussion of the racial divide.

In 1906 Atlanta, after a summer of inflammatory headlines and accusations of black-on-white sexual assaults, armed white mobs attacked African Americans, resulting in at least twenty-five black fatalities. Atlanta's black residents fought back and repeatedly defended their neighborhoods from white raids. Placing this four-day riot in a broader narrative of twentieth-century race relations in Atlanta, in the South, and in the United States, David Fort Godshalk examines the riot's origins and how memories of this cataclysmic event shaped black and white social and political life for decades to come. Nationally, the riot radicalized many civil rights leaders, encouraging W. E. B. Du Bois's confrontationist stance and diminishing the accommodationist voice of Booker T. Washington. In Atlanta, fears of continued disorder prompted white civic leaders to seek dialogue with black elites, establishing a rare biracial tradition that convinced mainstream northern whites that racial reconciliation was possible in the South without national intervention. Paired with black fears of renewed violence, however, this interracial cooperation exacerbated black social divisions and repeatedly undermined black social justice movements, leaving the city among the most segregated and socially stratified in the nation. Analyzing the interwoven struggles of men and women, blacks and whites, social outcasts and national powerbrokers, Godshalk illuminates the possibilities and limits of racial understanding and social change in twentieth-century America.

"Rashawn Ray's edited collection has woven together a textured tapestry of some of the most seminal and outstanding scholarship on the evolution of the concepts of race and racial relations across the social sciences. This fine compendium of articles is an engaging read and provides a great service to scholars, teachers, and students of race relations in the United States." -- Prudence Carter Author of Keepin' It Real: School Success Beyond Black and White "In a field crowded with race anthologies, this exciting new volume stands out from the crowd. Through a powerful combination of the best of critical race scholarship by senior scholars as well as cutting-edge work by up-and-coming thinkers, the selections in Race and Ethnic Relations in the Twenty-First Century not only survey where critical race studies has been but, more importantly, point the way to where this important field is going." -- Patricia Hill Collins Author of Another Kind of Public Education: Race, the Media, Schools, and Democratic Possibilities "During the twenty-first century, Americans desperately need some clear and penetrating analyses of how race operates throughout society, affecting life chances and shaping who we are as a people. This volume fits the bill exquisitely. Its collection of classic and contemporary essays thoroughly interrogates the role of race helping both advanced scholars and beginning students to come to grips with the vast realities of race. It is a timely volume that will help to wipe away the confusion surrounding race in America and point to ways the nation can overcome one of it original sins." -- Aldon Morris Author of The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change "This excellent collection brings together well-known, established authors whose theories have influenced contemporary research on race with those emerging scholars whose findings will shape future research and policy. It lays the groundwork for revisiting social psychological theories in the context of institutional and interactional approaches to the study of race, gender and social status. These readings help explain the persistence of obstacles facing old and new minorities in the United States as well as highlighting the opportunities for and promise of overcoming them." -- Wanda Rushing Author of Memphis and the Paradox of Place: Globalization in the American South Race and Ethnic Relations in the Twenty-First Century examines the major theoretical and empirical approaches regarding race and ethnicity. Its goal is to continue to place race and ethnic relations in a contemporary, intersectional, and cross-comparative context and progress the discipline to include groups past the Black/White dichotomy. Using various sociological theories, social psychological theories, and subcultural approaches, this book gives students a sociohistorical, theoretical, and institutional frame with which to view race and ethnic relations in the twenty-first century. Dr. Rashawn Ray is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Ray's research addresses the mechanisms that manufacture and maintain racial and social inequality. His work also speaks to ways that inequality may be attenuated through racial uplift activism and social policy. He has written op-eds for New York Times, Huffington Post, and Public Radio International. Currently, Ray runs the #DailyThought Vlog at rashawnray.com.