Of Greed and Glory: The African American Struggle for Freedom and Sovereignty

In this groundbreaking exploration, the editor of the? New York Times? bestseller? Barracoon documents and discusses social, political, and economic disparities and inequities that undermine African American freedom, citizenship, and sovereignty and that inhibits the advancement of America’s evolution as a democratic republic and its principles of freedom, equality, and justice for all.

Of Greed and Glory is a penetrating analysis of the systemic barriers intended to manage or prevent African American success in America. It questions the so-called disparities that deny and obstruct African American equality, economic stability, and political advancement. In examining the root causes of black impoverishment and the challenges to black mobility, full citizenship, and sovereignty, Of Greed and Glory posits human greed as a primary causal factor and discusses the politics of State officials and civic leaders who, driven by greed, ambition, and a propensity for excess, consciously choose to exploit white supremacist ideology to achieve their aims. It interrogates the fiction of a racial divide that is manipulated to maintain what is cast as structural inequities.

Through analyses of court decisions, legislative acts, administrative policies, and social custom, and the stories of historical and contemporary figures like Denmark Vesey, Fannie Lou Hamer, and George Floyd, Deborah G. Plant identifies and examines specific dynamics of the oppressive systems that serve to re-enslave or colonize African Americans: deracination, dispossession, systemic exclusion, mass incarceration, and the devaluation of black life. Consequent to the undoing of black life, Plant cautions, is the simultaneous undermining of the very fabric of our constitutional democracy.