ALLAN B. BALLARD

Ballard is a professor at the State University of New York at Albany. His research on African-American organizations in Philadelphia provides one of the few historical studies of independent community based groups. His work challenges the assumption that African Americans were inactive politically in American cities in the 19th and early 20th century.

Bibliography
Ballard, Allen B. One More Day's Journey : The Story of a Family and a People. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984.

LERONE BENNETT, JR.

Bennett (1928- ) was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and received his B.A. from Morehouse College in 1949. After a stint in the army, he worked for Jet magazine, then in 1954 moved to Ebony magazine, where he eventually became Executive Editor. He has written or co-authored ten books, the first of which was Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America, 1619-1962 (1962), which won him the Book of the Year Award from the Capital Press Club the following year. Using his keen journalistic abilities, Bennett addresses the history of race relations in the United States and the current political environment in which African Americans continue to strive for equality. He is an activist articulating the ways in which people of color can overcome bigotry and a history of subjugation. But he has also been critical of the black establishment, pointing out the mixed messages of various black leaders--ranging from support of nonviolent social action to the promotion of more aggressive black power tactics--as a source of divisiveness in the black community.

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GAIL BUCKLEY

Buckley is a journalist and daughter of Lena Horne. She considers her latest book (see Bibliography) to be “completed American history,” not “black history,” which treats African Americans fighting and dying for their country even when their own rights were being denied them. The book, which grew out of Buckley’s keen interest in the politics of the larger struggle for equal rights in America, shows that true patriots have a positive, fighting spirit and the perseverance to endure what it takes to improve the country for which they fight. Having invested 15 years of research in her book, she notes that it took both civilian and military efforts for African Americans to gain access to their rightful place in their nation.