The End of Respectability: Notes of a Black American Reckoning with His Life and His Nation

Blending social history, bracing analysis, and autobiography in essays that investigate the hard realities and measured hopes of African Americans in the early twenty-first century, acclaimed author Anthony Walton arrives at fresh and startling conclusions.

In this dazzling collection of essays, acclaimed author Anthony Walton reflects on the progress and setbacks--both the unprecedented opportunities and unrelenting opposition--that he has witnessed and experienced as a Black man in the last sixty years. Blending social history, bracing analysis, and autobiography, Walton investigates the hard realities and measured hopes of African Americans in the twenty-first century and arrives at fresh, startling conclusions.

"The End of Respectability" is Walton's phrase for the next iteration of African American existence, the confusing and often contradictory maze of progress and backlash. While many Blacks have assimilated into the mainstream, data indicates that some aspects are worse than ever. Born into the Civil Rights Movement, Walton observed firsthand the opening of opportunity and overtures of reconciliation. He also saw systemic racism and the vicious backlash against Black progress embodied in the Southern Strategy, Tea Party, and MAGA. Over time, Walton has come to believe that moving forward requires a "Third Reconstruction," yet another manifestation of the double-consciousness W. E. B. DuBois described. It will necessitate Blacks live, work, and love alongside those who embrace equality while never losing sight of permanent enemies. Only this approach will accomplish what remains unfinished for true African American equality: better health outcomes, secure voting rights, and sustained economic and educational opportunity.

This collection features essays published in The New York Times and The Atlantic--including "Willie Horton and Me" and the much-anthologized "Technology vs. African Americans"--as well as new work that probes Walton's earlier thinking and delivers insights that wrestle with the hydra-headed, ever-changing realities of an American society in which the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The End of Respectability illuminates recent American history as experienced by a Black writer who has remained open to hope, unfazed by failures, and unflinchingly dedicated to the truth.