• Home
  • Search
  • Browse Collections
  • My Account
  • About
  • DC Network Digital Commons Network™
Skip to main content
Scholar Commons University of South Carolina
  • Home
  • About
  • FAQ
  • My Account

Home > USC_COLUMBIA > University Publications > USCPRESS > USCPRESS_PUB

USC Press Collection

 
Printing is not supported at the primary Gallery Thumbnail page. Please first navigate to a specific Image before printing.

Follow

Switch View View Slideshow
 
  • In the Service of God and Humanity: Conscience, Reason, and the Mind of Martin R. Delany by Tunde Adeleke

    In the Service of God and Humanity: Conscience, Reason, and the Mind of Martin R. Delany

    Tunde Adeleke

    Martin R. Delany (1812–1885) was one of the leading and most influential Black activists and nationalists in American history. His ideas have inspired generations of activists and movements, including Booker T. Washington in the late nineteenth century, Marcus Garvey in the early 1920s, Malcolm X and Black Power in 1960s, and even today's Black Lives Matter. Extant scholarship on Delany has focused largely on his Black nationalist and Pan-Africanist ideas. Tunde Adeleke argues that there is so much more about Delany to appreciate. In the Service of God and Humanity reveals and analyzes Delany's contributions to debates and discourses about strategies for elevating Black people and improving race relations in the nineteenth century.

    Adeleke examines Delany's view of Blacks as Americans who deserved the same rights and privileges accorded Whites. While he spent the greater part of his life pursuing racial equality, his vision for America was much broader. Adeleke argues that Delany was a quintessential humanist who envisioned a social order in which everyone, regardless of race, felt validated and empowered. Through close readings of the discourse of Delany's humanist visions and aspirations, Adeleke illuminates many crucial but undervalued aspects of his thought. He discusses the strategies Delany espoused in his quest to universalize America's most cherished of values—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—and highlights his ideological contributions to the internal struggles to reform America. The breadth and versatility of Delany's thought become more evident when analyzed within the context of his American-centered aspirations. In the Service of God and Humanity reveals a complex man whose ideas straddled many complicated social, political, and cultural spaces, and whose voice continues to speak to America today.

    Keywords: activist, abolitionist, African American, Black, nationalist, integration, 19th century, humanist

 
 
 

Search

Advanced Search

  • Notify me via email or RSS

Browse

  • Collections
  • Disciplines
  • Authors
  • Faculty Expert Gallery

Submissions

  • Author FAQ

Links

  • USC Press
  • University Libraries
  • Tell Us Your Thoughts
  • Access, Use and Removal Policy
 
Digital Commons

Home | About | FAQ | My Account | Accessibility Statement

Privacy Copyright