Table of Contents

Introduction to the Updated Edition

Introduction to the First Edition: Naming the Dead in the Name of the Living

1. American Shame and Real Freedom

2. Cultural Control against Social Control: The Radical Possibilities of the Harlem Renaissance

3. For Our Sons, Daughters, and All Concerned Souls

4. Where Is the Love? The Hope for Americaâs Redemption

5. The Radical Lessons We Have Not Yet Learned

6. Black, Blues, and America: Amiri Baraka and Angela Davis on The Freedom to Be Black

Afterword: Nobodyâs Protest Essay

Notes

Index

About the Author

Christopher J. Lebron is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of The Color of Our Shame: Race and Justice in Our Time, and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and the Boston Review.

Reviews

"Injecting historical and philosophical perspective into the country's contemporary racial quagmire, Lebron offers readers a glimpse of the intellectual roots of African Americans continual fight for respect and equality. His call to join a historically momentous generational force demanding change also offers readers direction on how to become part of a solution."--Library Journal
"If you want to understand the urgency of #BlackLivesMatter you need Christopher J. Lebron's excellent The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea, a nimble, passionate, and far-ranging intellectual history. Through testimony in art and in letters, Lebron presents radical political philosophy for our times."--Nell Irvin Painter, author of The History of White People
"The Making of Black Lives Matter offers a powerful, timely, and necessary intellectual meditation on the roots of the most important social movement of the 21st century. Christopher Lebron's cri de coeur challenges activists, institutions, and Americans of all backgrounds to reimagine the contours and possibilities of racial justice from antebellum slavery to the streets of Ferguson, Missouri."--Peniel E. Joseph, author of Stokely: A Life
"Lebron takes a deep, compelling dive into the intellectual and cultural background of the Black Lives Matter movement."--Walter Russell Mead, Foreign Affairs
"Christopher Lebron's short, incisive book examines the racialised violence that defines US history: from the overt violence of slavery to the racial segregation of Jim Crow legislation, from white supremacist lynchings to the covert white privilege of society today. Lebron never sets out to provide a historical assessment of Black Lives Matter but contextualises the movement within black political and ethical thought, while lauding the achievements of people
who have maintained their morals and dignity in the face of oppression and violence."--Times Higher Education