The White Image in the Black Mind African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925

Historical studies of white racial thought have focused on white ideas about the "Negroes". Bay's study examines the reverse - black ideas about whites, and, consequently, black understandings of race and racial categories.



Historical studies of white racial thought focus exclusively on white ideas about the "Negroes". Bay's study is the first to examine the reverse -- black ideas about whites, and, consequently, black understandings of race and racial categories. Bay examines African-American ideas about white racial character and destiny in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In examining black racial thought, this work also explores the extent to which black Americans accepted or rejected 19th century notions about innate racial characteristics.