The conclusion discusses the nature of historiography and why, with occasional exceptions such as the Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings controversy, there can be no final resolution of historical debates. It considers how the views of historians reflect the values and concerns of the times in which they live and the factors that influence their changing perceptions over time, as in C. Vann Woodward’s seminal study The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955). In addition to changing outlooks and values in society this may include the availability of hitherto difficult-to-access primary source material, such as the publication of the Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers. Historiographical debate also has its own internal dynamics as scholarly research not only sheds fresh light on existing debates but brings to the fore new issues to explore. Similarly, sustained focus on some topics or chronological periods, for example national civil rights leaders or the 1950s and 1960s, is, over time, counterbalanced by a natural shift in attention elsewhere, such as the study of local leadership and the civil rights struggle at grassroots level, or developments and events in earlier and later decades.

This chapter considers the vogue for post-racialism that accompanied the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and seeks to explain why such thinking became popular despite the continuing political, social and economic inequalities experienced by African Americans. It assesses the significance of the Obama presidency for African Americans and the impact of the Supreme Court ruling in Shelby v. Holder (2013) on voting rights. There is an analysis of the growth of the ‘Birther’ movement and the ‘othering’ of Obama, questioning his American citizenship and depicting him as holding un-American values as a communist or radical Muslim. This conspiratorial mindset is considered in the context of Richard Hofstadter’s thesis on the existence of a ‘paranoid style’ in the American political tradition. The consequences of the Trump administration for American race relations are examined and the extent to which his election can be seen as part of a recurring cycle of right-wing populism in American history, as in the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.The growth of the ‘alt-right’ and proliferation of white supremacist groups are considered including the controversial 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. In a wider context there is discussion of the continuing racial injustices and inequalities in policing and the justice system, as highlighted in the work of historians like Max Felker-Kantor and Clarence Taylor and the disturbing findings in Michelle Alexander’s seminal study, The New Jim Crow (2010). Scholarly studies on the Black Lives Matter protest movement are also noted.

The introduction considers the four eras in the study of African American history identified by John Hope Franklin. In the first period, 1882-1909, research was dominated by amateur scholars or prominent African Americans, such as George Washington Williams or Booker T. Washington. The second era, from 1909 to the mid-1930s, was marked by a growing professionalization in the study of African American history. It was dominated by two individuals, W. E. B. Du Bois and Carter Woodson. Widely regarded as the ‘father of African American history’, Woodson trained a new generation of historians and founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) and the Journal of Negro History. White historians either showed no interest in the experiences of African Americans, such as the historian of antebellum slavery Ulrich B. Phillips, or, as in the Dunning School of historians, held negative, stereotyped, perceptions of them that reflected the conservative racial attitudes of most white Americans of the day. The third era, from the 1930s through to the end of the 1960s, saw the emergence of a new generation of black historians, such as John Hope Franklin, and growing interest in African American history by some white scholars, like Herbert Aptheker and August Meier. In the fourth era since 1970, African American history enjoyed mainstream recognition within the historical profession. It saw the emergence of a new generation of black women historians, who drew attention to the hitherto neglected contribution of women activists to the African American freedom struggle.

This chapter looks at early white liberal and biracial opposition to racial injustice and segregation as reflected in the work of organizations like the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching (ASWPL), the Commission on Inter-Racial Cooperation (CIC), the Southern Conference for Human Welfare (SCHW) and the NAACP. There is an examination of the historiography on the Father Divine movement, and grassroots protests against Jim Crow-ism in working-class black communities, as highlighted by historians like Robin D. J. Kelley. The experiences of black workers in the labour movement are assessed together with the civil rights activism of the African American labour leader Asa Philip Randolph and his Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) trade union. The contribution made by communist activists, the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) and the Communist-dominated National Negro Congress (NNC) is likewise considered. In respect to mainstream national politics there is an evaluation of the civil-rights record of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the impact of the Great Depression and the extent to which New Deal agencies, like the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), National Reiy Administration (NRA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), mitigated or exacerbated the hardships experienced by African Americans. The significance of Gunnar Myrdal’s influential 1944 study An American Dilemma is also discussed. The chapter concludes with an analysis of developments during the Second World War and the ongoing historiographical debate on the ways in which the conflict both helped and hindered the African American freedom struggle.

This chapter provides an overview of the historiography on developments in race relations from 1980 to 2008 and the extent to which the period highlighted the successes and failures of the postwar civil rights movement. It assesses the scholarly literature on Jesse Jackson, his two presidential campaigns of the 1980s and Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam. There is analysis of the political ideologies and policies of the Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush administrations on race relations and specific challenges they faced, such as the HIV/AIDs epidemic and the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Wider developments in African American politics are considered, including the formation of the Congressional Black Caucus, the rise of big-city black mayors, the problems of the inner cities and ‘white flight’ to the suburbs. The controversial views of conservative black sociologist William Julius Wilson in The Declining Significance of Race (1978) and The Truly Disadvantaged (1987) are examined in the context of the continuing social and economic inequalities experienced by African Americans. There is discussion of changes in the pattern of race relations and popular culture, including Rap and Hip Hop, the turbulent career of world heavyweight boxing champion, Mike Tyson, television and Hollywood film. The growth of extremist militia groups and white supremacist networks is considered as a precursor to subsequent events during the Obama and Trump administrations and as a catalyst for the growth of interest by historians in far-right movements of earlier decades.

This chapter analyses the historiography on the life and career of Martin Luther King and the ’big five’ civil-rights organizations, the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the National Urban League (NUL). Studies on the civil rights movement at local level, north and south, are also considered as is the contribution of women activists. It assesses the civil rights records of the presidential administrations of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson together with the impact of the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and the southern ‘Massive Resistance’ and efforts by white segregationists to oppose desegregation and other advances made by the civil rights movement. The role of the Catholic and Protestant churches and Judaism is examined, and the ways in which religious faith both challenged and reinforced the views of participants on both sides of the civil rights struggle. The civil rights movement is discussed in a wider international context, including the ways in which it was influenced by the onset and development of the Cold War and the postwar move towards decolonization in the global south and the foreign policy challenges this presented for successive presidential administrations. The relationship between the civil rights movement and popular culture is also considered, both in terms of how it was reflected in developments in radio, film, television and the print media, and the significance of this for the movement.

This chapter examines the historiography on the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the causes and consequences of the ‘Great Migration’ of African Americans from the southern states to cities of the north, like New York, Chicago and Detroit, between 1915 and 1925. It considers the formation and early work of the National Urban League (NUL) and the NAACP, and the contribution of leading figures within the Association including W. E. B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, Mary White Ovington and Walter White. Their published memoirs and reminiscences provide case studies to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of autobiography as primary source material. The racial policies of the presidential administrations of Woodrow Wilson, 1913–21, are discussed together with the impact of the First World War and prewar and wartime race riots on the lives of African Americans and US race relations. In the postwar era attention focuses on the rise of Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), including the role of women in the organization, UNIA activists at local level, and the Garvey movement outside the United States, most notably in Africa and the Caribbean. There is also an analysis of the contribution made by West Indian immigrants to African American life and society. In respect to cultural developments there is discussion of the origins, nature and significance of the Harlem Renaissance, or New Negro Movement, of the 1920s and the extent to which it can be seen as a form of resistance to racism and colonialism.

This chapter examines the extensive, wide-ranging, developments in the historiography on black power and black nationalism since the publication of the first edition of The debate on black civil rights in America in 2006. The growth and development of the Nation of Islam (NOI), or Black Muslim movement, is assessed together with its impact on African American communities in the inner cities of the north. Recent works on Elijah Muhammad, the leader or ‘Messenger’ of the Nation, are considered, together with the role of women in the organization and the reasons for their conversion to it, notwithstanding the paternalistic outlook of the NOI. The historiography on the life and career of Malcolm X, the Nation’s best-known national spokesperson, is examined, together with the reasons for his departure from the NOI and his enduring significance as a race leader some sixty years after his assassination in 1965. The growth of the black power movement in the late 1960s, its successes and failures, and the reasons for its rapid decline by the early 1970s, are considered. Particular attention is given to the proliferation of recent studies on the grassroots achievements of the Black Panthers, challenging earlier negative portrayals. The life and career of Stokely Carmichael, arguably the most influential advocate for black power, is discussed, as well as scholarly debates on the historical roots of armed self-defence and the extent to which black power should be seen as a continuation of, or departure from, the values of the mainstream civil rights movement.