Top down : the Ford Foundation, black power, and the by Karen Ferguson

By Karen Ferguson
At first look, the Ford origin and the black energy move may make an not likely partnership. After the second one international struggle, the popular starting place was once the biggest philanthropic association within the usa and used to be devoted to initiatives of liberal reform. Black energy ideology, which promoted self-determination over color-blind assimilation, used to be usually characterised as radical and divisive. yet origin president McGeorge Bundy selected to interact instead of confront black power's problem to racial liberalism via an bold, long term technique to foster the "social improvement" of racial minorities. The Ford origin not just bankrolled yet originated some of the black strength era's hallmark legacies: neighborhood keep watch over of public faculties, ghetto-based fiscal improvement tasks, and race-specific arts and cultural organizations.
In Top Down, Karen Ferguson explores the results of this counterintuitive and unequal dating among the liberal institution and black activists and their rules. In essence, the white liberal attempt to reforge a countrywide consensus on race had the influence of remaking racial liberalism from the head down—a domestication of black strength ideology that also prospers in present racial politics. eventually, this new racial liberalism could support foster a black management class—including Barack Obama—while accommodating the intractable inequality that first drew the Ford beginning to handle the "race problem."