Emancipation without Equality

"Emancipation without Equality is extremely well written and offers several important interventions in the literature on nineteenth-century abolitionism, Pan-Africanism, colonization, African American intellectual thought, and African American internationalism and transnationalism."—Stephen G. Hall, author of A Faithful Account of the Race: African American Historical Writing in Nineteenth-Century America

"As Smith demonstrates, global imperialism and the rise of a new scientific racism challenged Pan-Africanists to articulate a doctrine of liberation that affirmed black subjectivities without ceding legitimacy to Euro-American standards of civilization and preparedness. What emerged was a vibrant Pan-Africanism attuned to transnational, global, and local dimensions of anti-black racial oppression."—Jeannette Eileen Jones, author of In Search of Brightest Africa: Reimagining the Dark Continent in American Culture, 1884–1936

"Emancipation without Equality joins a growing body of work which challenges the attenuation of race critique to the boundaries of the nation-state. The book eloquently retrieves a crucial yet under-appreciated historical moment of race critique and provides remarkable clarity to the complex links between resurgent empire in the late 19th century and the audacious Pan-Africanism of the early 20th century."—Robbie Shilliam, author of Race and the Undeserving Poor: From Abolition to Brexit

"This slim, readable volume explores the construction and influence of black activist and intellectual networks in the postemancipation US."—CHOICE

"Emancipation without Equality offers nonspecialists a clearly written overview of black American internationalism and Pan-African thinking decades before the Pan-African Congresses in the Post–World War I era . . . [It] is an impressive achievement that provides an original interpretation of Pan-African activism during the Progressive Era."—Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

"Thomas E. Smith's Emancipation without Equality is a sturdy contribution to scholarship on the Pan-African movement . . . Smith makes a compelling case that the Pan-African movement successfully 'contributed to the normative meaning of human rights.'"—Journal of American History