Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture to Uplift the Race by Kevin GainesUplifting the Race is a rather confusing but thought-provoking study that reviews the idea and emerging interests in The evolution of the ideology of "racial uprising" at the turn of the 20th century. In the first part of the book, Gaines analyzes the black elite's obsession with race-promoting ideology and the tensions it produced among black intellectuals. Gaines essentially argues that during the 19th century, the ideology of racial uplift was part of a "liberation theology," as Gaines put it, which emphasized a struggle of group for freedom and social progress. In this particular article by Gaines, he offers an in-depth analysis. of the racial, class, color, and gender dimensions of a very complex subject, but it is also a thought-provoking study. As noted in many class discussions, this is a difficult read that uses complicated language and a fragmented organizational structure. For me and many others in the class, this piece required a dictionary to translate the choice of words Gaines used. At times, Gaines' analysis lacks clear meaning and seems to wander from one unrelated point to another. In nine fully researched chapters with an excellent bibliography and index, Kevin K. Gaines develops his ideas regarding an “ideology of elevation.” It begins at the turn of the century examining violent racism as Reconstruction was dying and the civil rights movement was born. From this historical mixture emerges a new concept, "elevation", according to which the upper class, or the black elite, believed they could gain the rights and respect of whites by adopting bourgeois mores of mutual aid and service to the community. ma... ... middle of paper ...... using the works of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, WEB Dubois's ideas on self-help in the face of racism; and the work of Anna Julia Cooper on the feminist perspective, Hubert H. Harrison, and Alice Dunbar-Harrison. There were members of the upper class who demeaned those of the lower classes, Gaines claims, and some black men ignored the plight of women, just as suffragettes ignored the plight of blacks. This process, however, requires more work and research to be fully acceptable. After reflection, however, the author leaves the reader with a much better understanding of the paradox of “uprising”; I believe that before receiving this understanding, one must read the book several times. However, what seems clear is that black people attempted to join a society that, to a large extent, sought to define it by excluding them..