Some Americans insist that we're living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America--it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit. In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis. As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's racial inequities. In shedding light on this history, Stamped from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking. In the process, he gives us reason to hope.

Cotton Mather. Human hierarchy -- Origins of racist ideas -- Coming to America -- Saving souls, not bodies -- Black hunts -- Great awakening -- Thomas Jefferson. Enlightenment -- Black exhibits -- Created equal -- Uplift suasion -- Big bottoms -- Colonization -- William Lloyd Garrison. Gradual equality -- Imbruted or civilized -- Soul -- The impending crisis -- History's emancipator -- Ready for freedom? -- Reconstructing slavery -- Reconstructing blame -- W.E.B. Du Bois. Renewing the south -- Southern horrors -- Black Judases -- Great white hopes -- The birth of a nation -- Media suasion -- Old deal -- Freedom brand -- Massive resistance -- Angela Davis. The act of civil rights -- Black power -- Law and order -- Reagan's drugs -- New Democrats -- New Republicans -- 99.9 percent the same -- The extraordinary Negro.