From Black Power to Hip Hop

In this, her grounbreaking book, Patricia Hill Collins examines the new forms of racism in American life and the political responses to them. Using the experiences of African American men and women as her touchstone, she covers a wide range of issues that connect questions of race to American identity. She follows the long arc of African American responses to racism in the US, from Black Nationalism, to Black feminism, to hip hop. Using this "genealogy," she then investigates how nationalism has operated and reemerged in the wake of contemporary globalization and the unexpected resurgence of nationalism. She then offers an interpretation of how Black nationalsim works today in the wake of changing Black youth identity and the continuing need to draw on nationalism and feminism to formulate both a response to racism and a concrete platform of political action.

Patricia Hill Collins is Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.