A Black Way of Seeing

“The language of the Declaration of Independence could not have used the word freedom without directly confronting the issue of slavery as the ultimate denial of liberty,” writes the Black American writer Paul Robeson, Jr. in the opening pages of this powerful and forward-looking indictment of contemporary American politics from one of our strongest and bravest Black voices of conscience.

Thereafter, Robeson writes, “liberty meant the privileges to which the elite minority was entitled.” And as for freedom… we are still waiting for it.

In the tradition of Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk, Robeson’s A Black Way of Seeing melds history and analysis in a sweeping panaroma, scathing in its understanding of why black empowerment has failed, prescient in its articulation of what it will take for Black Americans to finally cross over to the status of fully empowered citizens, and what the ramifications of this change can be for the country as a whole.

Today no African-American elected on a Republican ticket sits in Congress. Most Blacks do not trust President Bush, and are not inclined to believe anything he says. When Black Americans begin to change the status quo, Robeson argues, they will change not only their own status in America, but will help change this whole country in the process.

Paul Robeson, Jr., son of the legendary Paul Robeson, served for more than 20 years as his father's close aide and personal representative. An esteemed cultural critic, he has lectured across the United States and England and appeared on radio and television programs across the globe. This is his third book.