Beschrijving

Karen Ferguson explores the consequences of the counterintuitive and unequal relationship between the elite liberal Ford Foundation and black power activists, arguing that codeveloped initiatives in education, community development, and the arts contributed to the recreation of racial liberalism in the neo-conservative era and beyond.

At first glance, the Ford Foundation and the black power movement would make an unlikely partnership. After the Second World War, the renowned Foundation was the largest philanthropic organization in the United States and was dedicated to projects of liberal reform. Black power ideology, which promoted self-determination over color-blind assimilation, was often characterized as radical and divisive. But Foundation president McGeorge Bundy chose to engage rather than confront black power’s challenge to racial liberalism through an ambitious, long-term strategy to foster the \