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Charles S. Johnson: Leadership beyond the Veil in the Age of Jim Crow. By Patrick J. Gilpin and Marybeth Gasman. Foreword by David Levering Lewis. (Albany: State University of New York Press, c. 2003. Pp. xvi, 318. Paper, $23.95, ISBN 0-7914-5898-9; cloth, $78.50, ISBN 0-7914-5897-0.)
Except among sociologists and historians of race relations, the significant role Charles S. Johnson played in preparing the way for the civil rights revolution that began in the 1950s has been neither recognized nor acknowledged. The authors of this study seek to remedy that obscurity. Their thorough scholarship and careful weaving of the many strands in the life of this scholar, educator, and African American leader should result in increased and broader understanding of his contribution to laying the groundwork for the maturing of the civil rights movement after World War II.
The authors present their case for the importance of Johnson in the African American fight for justice by describing his central role as the cultural entrepreneur of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and by focusing on his fostering and guidance of the scholarly research and studies in race relations produced by the Department of Sociology, the Department of...