From Emerson to King: Democracy, Race, and the Politics of Protest

This work explores Emerson's contribution to the debate on democracy, race and social reform. Emerson's writings, it argues, reveal a pattern of contradiction between fundamental individual rights and race as a factor impossible to dismiss in a consideration of democratic values.
Patterson offers an exploration of Emerson's contribution to the national debate on democracy, race, and social reform. Emerson's writings, she contests, reveal a consistent pattern of contradiction between fundamental individual rights and race as a factor impossible to dismiss in a consideration of democratic values: ownership, nonconformity, freedom. She traces Emerson's legacy through the writing of African-American intellectuals of succeeding generations:
Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King, Jr.