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• American racism and the relevance of law
• Race and American history
• The quest for effective schools
• Fair employment laws and their limits
• Discrimination in the administration of justice
• Voting rights and democratic domination
• Property barriers and fair housing laws
• Interracial intimate relationships and racial identification
• Public facilities : symbols of subordination
• The parameters of racial protest
• Racism and other "nonwhites".

• Economic determinism and interest convergence
• Racial realism
• Ethics of lawyering
• Revisionist history
• Sexuality and romance
• Politics of the academy
• Nationalism, separatism, and self help
• Price of racial remedies
• Pedagogy
• Racial standing
• Racism as meanness
• Popular democracy
• Race and class
• Survival strategies
• Critiques.

Lawyer, activist, teacher, writer: for over forty years, Derrick Bell has provoked his critics and challenged his readers with uncompromising candor and progressive views on race and class in America. A founder of Critical Race Theory and pioneer of the use of allegorical stories as tools of analysis, Bell's extraordinary work shatters conventional legal orthodoxies and turns comfortable majoritarian myths inside out. While his writing spans several decades and addresses a myriad of topics, it has never been collected in a single volume until now. Edited with an extensive introduction by leading critical race theorists Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, The Derrick Bell Reader consists of fifteen thematic chapters that reflect the tremendous breadth of issues that Bell has grappled with over his phenomenal career, including affirmative action, black nationalism, and legal education and ethics. Some pieces are written in elegant expository prose, such as meditations on the impact of the Brown v. Board of Education decision; others in the narrative form for which Bell is famous, particularly his signature Geneva Crenshaw chronicles. The book also includes never before published material by Bell, including poetry and the startling letter of resignation he submitted to the dean of Harvard Law School in protest of the lack of women of color on the faculty. Together, the selections offer the most complete collection of Derrick Bell's writing available today.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Lawyer, activist, teacher, writer: for over forty years, Derrick Bell has provoked his critics and challenged his readers with uncompromising candor and progressive views on race and class in America. A founder of Critical Race Theory and pioneer of the use of allegorical stories as tools of analysis, Bell's extraordinary work shatters conventional legal orthodoxies and turns comfortable majoritarian myths inside out. While his writing spans several decades and addresses a myriad of topics, it has never been collected in a single volume until now. Edited with an extensive introduction by leading critical race theorists Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, The Derrick Bell Reader consists of fifteen thematic chapters that reflect the tremendous breadth of issues that Bell has grappled with over his phenomenal career, including affirmative action, black nationalism, and legal education and ethics. Some pieces are written in elegant expository prose, such as meditations on the impact of the Brown v. Board of Education decision; others in the narrative form for which Bell is famous, particularly his signature Geneva Crenshaw chronicles. The book also includes never before published material by Bell, including poetry and the startling letter of resignation he submitted to the dean of Harvard Law School in protest of the lack of women of color on the faculty. Together, the selections offer the most complete collection of Derrick Bell's writing available today.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• 1. Plessy's Long Shadow
• 2. Brown's Half Light
• 3. Brown Reconceived: An Alternate Scenario
• 4. The Racial Sacrifice Covenants
• 5. The Interest-Convergence Covenance
• 6. Brown as an Anti-Communist Decision
• 7. The Role of Fortuity in Racial Policy-Making
• 8. Racism's Economic Foundation
• 9. School Litigation in the Nineteenth Century
• 10. The School Desegregation Era
• 11. The End of the Brown Era
• 12. Brown as Landmark: An Assessment
• 13. Affirmative Action and Racial Fortuities in Action
• 14. Searching for Effective Schools in the Post-Brown Era
• 15. Moving Beyond Racial Fortuity
• 16. Conclusion.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously declared that separate educational facilities are "inherently unequal" and, as such, violate the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees all citizens "equal protection of the laws". Hailed as a landmark decision, Brown vs. Board Education promised the nation's citizens equality and racial justice at last. Yet despite Brown's promise for what law and society might be and the awe and respect it evokes with the passing years, it has achieved little and is little used as legal precedent. The noble image, dulled by resistance to any but token steps toward compliance, has transformed Brown into a magnificance mirage, the legal equivalent of that city on a hill to which all aspire without any serious thought that aspiration will ever become attainment. In a sure-to-be controversial work, Derrick Bell argues that though Brown has come to be regarded as the Perfect Precedent, its true lesson is that advocates of racial justice should rely less on judicial decisions and more on tactics, actions, even attitudes that challenge the continuing assumptions of white dominance. Turning history on its head, Bell suggests that if we had had more realism in our racial dealings, we might have kept Plessy, kept separate but equal in placem and attacked instead, at its root, the racial discrimination that continues to haunt the nation. It is only by petitioning for racial justice in forms that whites will realize serve their interests, Bell argues, that true equality will ever be achieved.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• 1. Plessy's Long Shadow
• 2. Brown's Half Light
• 3. Brown Reconceived: An Alternate Scenario
• 4. The Racial Sacrifice Covenants
• 5. The Interest-Convergence Covenance
• 6. Brown as an Anti-Communist Decision
• 7. The Role of Fortuity in Racial Policy-Making
• 8. Racism's Economic Foundation
• 9. School Litigation in the Nineteenth Century
• 10. The School Desegregation Era
• 11. The End of the Brown Era
• 12. Brown as Landmark: An Assessment
• 13. Affirmative Action and Racial Fortuities in Action
• 14. Searching for Effective Schools in the Post-Brown Era
• 15. Moving Beyond Racial Fortuity
• 16. Conclusion.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

When the landmark Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education was handed down in 1954, many civil rights advocates believed that the decision finding public school segregation unconstitutional could become the Holy Grail of racial justice. Fifty years later, despite its legal irrelevance and the racially separate and educationally ineffective state of public schooling for most black children, Brown is still viewed by many as the perfect precedent. Derrick Bell here shatters this shining image of one of the Court's most celebrated rulings. He notes that, despite the onerous burdens of segregation, many black schools functioned well and racial bigotry had not rendered blacks a damaged race. Brown's recognition of racial injustice, without more, left racial barriers intact. Given what we now know about the pervasive nature of racism, the Court should have determined--for the first time--to rigorously enforce the "equal" component of the "separate but equal" standard. By striking it down, the Court intended both to improve the Nation's international image during the Cold War and offer blacks recognition that segregation was wrong. Instead, the Brown decision actually enraged and energized its opponents. It stirred confusion and conflict into the always vexing question of race in a society that, despite denials and a frustratingly flexible amnesia, owes much of its growth, development, and success, to the ability of those who dominate the society to use race to both control and exploit most people, black and white. Racial policy, Bell maintains, is made through silent covenants--unspoken convergences of interest and involuntary sacrifices of rights--that ensure that policies conform to priorities set by policy-makers. Blacks and whites are the fortuitous winners or losers in these unspoken agreements. The experience with Brown, Bell urges, should teach us that meaningful progress in the quest for racial justice requires more than the assertion of harms. Strategies must recognize and utilize the interest-convergence factors that strongly influence racial policy decisions. In Silent Covenants, Bell condenses more than four decades of thought and action into a powerful and eye-opening book.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously declared that separate educational facilities are "inherently unequal" and, as such, violate the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees all citizens "equal protection of the laws". Hailed as a landmark decision, Brown vs. Board Education promised the nation's citizens equality and racial justice at last. Yet despite Brown's promise for what law and society might be and the awe and respect it evokes with the passing years, it has achieved little and is little used as legal precedent. The noble image, dulled by resistance to any but token steps toward compliance, has transformed Brown into a magnificance mirage, the legal equivalent of that city on a hill to which all aspire without any serious thought that aspiration will ever become attainment. In a sure-to-be controversial work, Derrick Bell argues that though Brown has come to be regarded as the Perfect Precedent, its true lesson is that advocates of racial justice should rely less on judicial decisions and more on tactics, actions, even attitudes that challenge the continuing assumptions of white dominance. Turning history on its head, Bell suggests that if we had had more realism in our racial dealings, we might have kept Plessy, kept separate but equal in placem and attacked instead, at its root, the racial discrimination that continues to haunt the nation. It is only by petitioning for racial justice in forms that whites will realize serve their interests, Bell argues, that true equality will ever be achieved.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• 1. Plessy's Long Shadow
• 2. Brown's Half Light
• 3. Brown Reconceived: An Alternate Scenario
• 4. The Racial Sacrifice Covenants
• 5. The Interest-Convergence Covenance
• 6. Brown as an Anti-Communist Decision
• 7. The Role of Fortuity in Racial Policy-Making
• 8. Racism's Economic Foundation
• 9. School Litigation in the Nineteenth Century
• 10. The School Desegregation Era
• 11. The End of the Brown Era
• 12. Brown as Landmark: An Assessment
• 13. Affirmative Action and Racial Fortuities in Action
• 14. Searching for Effective Schools in the Post-Brown Era
• 15. Moving Beyond Racial Fortuity
• 16. Conclusion.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously declared that separate educational facilities are "inherently unequal" and, as such, violate the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees all citizens "equal protection of the laws". Hailed as a landmark decision, Brown vs. Board Education promised the nation's citizens equality and racial justice at last. Yet despite Brown's promise for what law and society might be and the awe and respect it evokes with the passing years, it has achieved little and is little used as legal precedent. The noble image, dulled by resistance to any but token steps toward compliance, has transformed Brown into a magnificance mirage, the legal equivalent of that city on a hill to which all aspire without any serious thought that aspiration will ever become attainment. In a sure-to-be controversial work, Derrick Bell argues that though Brown has come to be regarded as the Perfect Precedent, its true lesson is that advocates of racial justice should rely less on judicial decisions and more on tactics, actions, even attitudes that challenge the continuing assumptions of white dominance. Turning history on its head, Bell suggests that if we had had more realism in our racial dealings, we might have kept Plessy, kept separate but equal in placem and attacked instead, at its root, the racial discrimination that continues to haunt the nation. It is only by petitioning for racial justice in forms that whites will realize serve their interests, Bell argues, that true equality will ever be achieved.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
When the landmark Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education was handed down in 1954, many civil rights advocates believed that the decision finding public school segregation unconstitutional could become the Holy Grail of racial justice. Fifty years later, despite its legal irrelevance and the racially separate and educationally ineffective state of public schooling for most black children, Brown is still viewed by many as the perfect precedent. Derrick Bell here shatters this shining image of one of the Court's most celebrated rulings. He notes that, despite the onerous burdens of segregation, many black schools functioned well and racial bigotry had not rendered blacks a damaged race. Brown's recognition of racial injustice, without more, left racial barriers intact. Given what we now know about the pervasive nature of racism, the Court should have determined--for the first time--to rigorously enforce the "equal" component of the "separate but equal" standard. By striking it down, the Court intended both to improve the Nation's international image during the Cold War and offer blacks recognition that segregation was wrong. Instead, the Brown decision actually enraged and energized its opponents. It stirred confusion and conflict into the always vexing question of race in a society that, despite denials and a frustratingly flexible amnesia, owes much of its growth, development, and success, to the ability of those who dominate the society to use race to both control and exploit most people, black and white. Racial policy, Bell maintains, is made through silent covenants--unspoken convergences of interest and involuntary sacrifices of rights--that ensure that policies conform to priorities set by policy-makers. Blacks and whites are the fortuitous winners or losers in these unspoken agreements. The experience with Brown, Bell urges, should teach us that meaningful progress in the quest for racial justice requires more than the assertion of harms. Strategies must recognize and utilize the interest-convergence factors that strongly influence racial policy decisions. In Silent Covenants, Bell condenses more than four decades of thought and action into a powerful and eye-opening book.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• The power in passion
• Courage and risk taking
• Evolving faith
• Advancing relationships
• Ethical inspirations
• Humility's wisdom.

Offers reflections on integrity and success in a series of meditations that challenge readers to confront questions of faith, courage, inspiration, ambition, personal relationships, and the quest to succeed at any price.

Who will YOU have to become to succeed? Most of us believe that we must compromise our integrity to get ahead in life. With material success now our overarching social goal, the pressure to succeed is stronger than it's ever been. But what does this mean for our convictions, our morals, our ideals? In his book, Derrick Bell demonstrates that it is possible to attain success and not compromise our values by practising what he describes as Ethical Ambition. Setting out seven rules with which to conduct our lives, he places ethics as central to our ambition, so we can simultaneously honour our values and our needs. "Ethical Ambition" will force you to re-examine your beliefs and motivate you to change your life. It is an important book for our times.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Redemption Deferred: Back to the Space Traders
• Trying to Teach the White Folks
• Living with the Specter of Calhoun
• Staying No Way Tired
• The Freedom of Employment Act
• Shadow Song
• The Mentality of Race
• Nigger Free
• Racial Royalties
• Women to the Rescue
• The Electric Slide Protest
• Equalitys Child
• The Entitlement
• The Gospel Light.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Just like the songs of a gospel choir, the pieces in this book give voice to the hardships faced by African Americans. Through allegorical stories and fictional encounters, dreams, and dialogues, it presents fresh perspectives on the different issues that concern Blacks, such as the message of The Bell Curve, the Contract with America, the medias handling of Black men, and corporate greeds responsibility for today's rising White rage and subsequent Black blame. Despite their tough subjects, however, these stories resound with laughter and compassion and a continuing theme of Christian love. Ultimately, like the gospel songs, they offer African Americans hope and direction as they travel the racist world they inhabit. Through parables and essays, Derrick Bell offers an eloquent work of social commentary on the permanence of racism. Gospel, says Derrick Bell, and particularly the gospel choir at its best, echoes the tempos of the soul searching for Gods peace in the midst of a hostile world. Just like the songs of a gospel choir, the pieces in this book give voice to the hardships faced by African Americans. Through allegorical stories and fictional encounters, dreams, and dialogues, it presents fresh perspectives on the different issues that concern Blacks, such as the message of The Bell Curve, the Contract with America, the medias handling of Black men, and corporate greeds responsibility for today's rising White rage and subsequent Black blame. Despite their tough subjects, however, these stories resound with laughter and compassion and a continuing theme of Christian love. Ultimately, like the gospel songs, they offer African Americans hope and direction as they travel the racist world they inhabit.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: Divining our racial themes
• Racial symbols: a limited legacy
• The Afrolantica awakening
• The Racial Preference Licensing Act
• The last black hero
• Divining a racial realism theory
• The rules of racial standing
• A law professor's protest
• Racism's secret bonding
• The space traders
• Epilogue: beyond despair

The noted civil rights activist uses allegory and historical example to present a radical vision of the persistence of racism in America. These essays shed light on some of the most perplexing and vexing issues of our day: affirmative action, the disparity between civil rights law and reality, the racist outbursts" of some black leaders, the temptation toward violent retaliation, and much more.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: Divining Our Racial Themes Racial Symbols: A Limited Legacy The Afrolantica Awakening The Racial Preference Licensing Act The Last Black Hero Divining a Racial Realism Theory The Rules of Racial Standing A Law Professors Protest Racisms Secret Bonding The Space Traders Epilogue: Beyond Despair.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

The noted civil rights activist uses allegory and historical example to present a radical vision of the persistence of racism in America. These essays shed light on some of the most perplexing and vexing issues of our day: affirmative action, the disparity between civil rights law and reality, the racist outbursts of some black leaders, the temptation toward violent retaliation, and much more.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: Divining Our Racial Themes Racial Symbols: A Limited Legacy The Afrolantica Awakening The Racial Preference Licensing Act The Last Black Hero Divining a Racial Realism Theory The Rules of Racial Standing A Law Professors Protest Racisms Secret Bonding The Space Traders Epilogue: Beyond Despair.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

The noted civil rights activist uses allegory and historical example to present a radical vision of the persistence of racism in America. These essays shed light on some of the most perplexing and vexing issues of our day: affirmative action, the disparity between civil rights law and reality, the racist outbursts of some black leaders, the temptation toward violent retaliation, and much more.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction * The Legal Hurdles To Racial Justice Prologue to Part I The Real Status of Blacks Today The Benefits to Whites of Civil Rights Litigation The Racial Limitation on Black Voting Power Neither Separate Schools Nor Mixed Schools The Racial Barrier to Reparations The Unspoken Limit on Affirmative Action The Declining Importance of the Equal-Protection Clause * The Social Affliction Of Racism Prologue to Part II The Race-Charged Relationship of Black Men and Black Women The Right to Decolonize Black Minds * Divining A Nations Salvation Prologue to Part III Salvation for All: The Ultimate Civil Rights Strategy.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

A distinguished legal scholar and civil rights activist employs a series of dramatic fables and dialogues to probe the foundations of Americas racial attitudes and raise disturbing questions about the nature of our society.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)