"This book demonstrates how certain African American writers radically re-envisioned core American ideals in order to make them serviceable for racial justice. Each writer's unprecedented reconstruction of key American values has the potential to energize American citizenship today"-- "In African American Political Thought and American Culture, Alex Zamalin argues that African American writers James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison expand the boundaries of American political thought and practice. These three writers uniquely reimagined core American ideals such as freedom, democratic commitment, and generosity, demonstrating that the practice of these values in everyday life, alongside the enactment of public policies and legislation, is essential for achieving racial justice. Through a historically and politically grounded reading of their work, Zamalin demonstrates that attending to these insights illuminates a previously unrecognized aspect of twentieth century African American political thought and intellectual life, and reveals a powerful and energizing source in the contemporary struggle for racial equality"--