To teachers of African American history, August Meier is well respected as a first-rank scholar and editor. But few people are aware of his formative experiences in the two decades following World War II, as a white professor teaching at black colleges and as an activist in the civil rights movement. This volume brings together sixteen of his essays written between 1945 and 1965. Meier has added a substantial introduction, reflecting on those years and setting the context in which the essays were written. John H. Bracey Jr. contributes an afterword which speaks to the uniqueness of Meier's experience among historians of African American studies.

This pioneering work in African American history begins with the earliest experiences of blacks in the United States and offers an in-depth account of slavery, post-Civil War urban life, the place of religion in African American life, political activism, and the changing occupational and economic status of blacks.

Along the Color Line is a diverse collection of essays by two of the most accomplished historians of the modern African American experience, first published more than a quarter of a century ago. This informed study addresses such topics as black nationalism, nonviolent action, the changing patterns of interracial violence in the twentieth century, and the ways African American leaders have functioned and coped with racism in their quest to ensure the rights of full citizenship for African Americans. David Levering Lewis's foreword to this first paperback edition attests to the book's lasting relevance and importance. "Meier and Rudwick's intellectual passion, professional integrity, and almost manic involvement in virtually every aspect of their academic specialty were of inestimable value to the coming of age of African American history." -- from the foreword

A rich and rewarding collection that will repay many reading by students of Afro-American, social, and political history.

Recounts the accomplishments of fifteen Black American men and women, including Martin Luther King, Mary McLeod Bethune, Adam Clayton Powell, and Booker T. Washington.