Stony the Road

Gates combines a variety of histories and writings to provide a rich analysis of the reconstitution of white supremacist ideology and culture in the post-Civil War decades along with the development of multi-faceted Black ideologies that mostly countered this narrative. Class lines clearly emerged within these Black intellectual traditions, making it harder to create a unified front against a more coherent revisionist narrative coming from white supremacists and bleeding into much of US society. There are some minor quibbles I have with this book, particularly on the poorly researched genetics sections as well as a strange aside on the validity of psychoanalysis (it's not). Regardless, this is an important, well-researched book that is unfortunately more timely than ever. Highly recommend