ABSTRACT
I had the honor of reviewing Matthew Holden’s two books, The White Man’s Burden and The Politics of the Black “Nation” in 1974. At that time, I concluded that his books reflected the efforts of a good man and a good mind in serious thought. Re-reading these books almost twenty-five years later, my assessment remains the same. As a long time admirer of Professor Holden, I share his passion for rigorous logical analysis and I admire the tenacity and boldness with which he makes and defends his points. And I am always heartened by his willingness to listen to counter arguments. Indeed in that brief historical moment of the 1960s and 1970s when the black academy was alive with debates that mattered, Holden and I exchanged more than a few notes in which we challenged each other’s ideas about the nature of our predicament and remedies for transforming it. To resume that dialogue now that we have both been chastened by history and experience and humbled by the ineluctable conservatism inflicted by age is an opportunity for which I am grateful.
