Trailblazing African American Public Administrators

This book is the first to formally chronicle the evolution of the field of public administration in the United States through eras of desegregation, equal opportunity, affirmative action, and diversity/multiculturalism, to today’s presumptions about a "post-racial" society, incorporating African American contributions to public policymaking and implementation at every stage. Focusing on the lives and contributions of several unsung but profound African American public administrators, accompanied by personal accounts of perseverance and detailed descriptions of unique approaches used for social change, this book demonstrates the intellectual, academic, and pragmatic evolution of these African American leaders as they built careers in their discipline and blazed the trail for those to come. Authors Beverly Edmond and Ron Finnell demonstrate how these pioneers extended the very definition of the enterprise of public administration through their movements between the intersecting worlds of academia, practice, social movements, and community activism. Trailblazing African American Public Administrators serves as an important practical, social, and historical teaching text for graduate and undergraduate courses in Public Administration, Public Management, Public Affairs, and Human Resource Management.