James Lama

Black American Political Thought James Lama

This book discusses the Hegelian themes in the works of six representative figures in BlackAmerican political thought: Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, William B. DuBois, MarcusGarvey, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. It seeks to investigate the articulation of these themeswith reference to the major works by George W. Frederick Hegel, namely the Phenomenology ofSpirit, The Philosophy of Right and The Philosophy of History. The working hypothesis at the basisof the research is that the quest for social recognition and freedom at the heart of a minority thoughtlike that of the Black American thinkers can be fully grasped within a Hegelian theoretical framework. Taking its bearings from new historicism, cultural materialism and post-colonial theory, this researchtries to show that the six Black thinkers under study have, each in his own manner, seized on themethodological tools and themes that Hegel supplied in his works to articulate their concerns forsocial recognition and freedom