African American Issues

by Kevin D. Roberts

The major issues for African Americans today, such as poverty, low graduation rates, high rates of out-of-wedlock births, and high rates of incarceration, are of national importance. This volume provides a solid foundation on the basis of which high school, community college, and college students can understand and debate nine of today's crucial issues in the context of the past and the present. These issues are slavery reparations, crime and punishment, cultural assimilation, Affirmative Action, school vouchers, standardized tests, Welfare-to-Work, stereotypes, and election reform.

The history of slavery, segregation, and racism continue to impact African Americans and the rest of society. For the youth of today, born after the major gains of the Civil Rights Movement, this book will be valuable to see how much more progress is needed. They will find an historical overview of the issues, learn about the main players, and read about the different sides. Under the topical chapters, readers will be able to consider the fuller spectrum of news items, such as the basis of Kwanzaa, whether comic Bill Cosby's comments about African Americans are on target, and what can be done about the voting disenfranchising in our current political system. Current events will be made more meaningful with this authoritative information and the interactive debates and activities.

184 pages, Hardcover

First published December 30, 2005

About the author

Kevin David Roberts is an American historian and political strategist who is the president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative political think tank, and its lobbying arm, Heritage Action. Prior to assuming his current role, he was the CEO of another conservative think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Roberts served as the president of Wyoming Catholic College from 2013 to 2016.

Soon after Roberts joined Heritage in December 2021, the organization established Project 2025, an expansive plan to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power after Donald Trump is inaugurated into office following the 2024 presidential election.

Reviews

[Zuriel Nyamutsaka · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an okay book. Very surface level though. Each chapter presented both sides of the issue which was intuitive to understand multiple perspectives on the issue, and the book remained fairly unbiased from what I gathered. However, its perspective as a white conservative author writing on African American leaves the book as something that the author wrote as an outsider looking in.