Black Nationalism in American Politics and Thought revisits the activism and arguments in support of separate black statehood from the mid-19th century to the present, detailing the ways black nationalism mirrors broader currents in U.S. politics and thought. This book challenges the idea that black nationalism is a timeless, unchanging, and anti-assimilationist impulse. It argues that black nationalism in the United States draws on analogous political strategy and thinking unique to specific historical eras—often inadvertently reproducing strategies and thinking responsible for racial inequality in the first place.