Early Traditions of African-American Sociological Thought

This article documents the empirical, methodological, and theoretical contributions of African-American sociologists from the late 1800s until 1945, an era that constitutes the early tradition of African-American sociological thought. African-American sociologists came to the discipline with the desire to assess the stake of African Americans in modernity, which centered on their transition to the urban sphere and the industrial socio-economic order in American society. Despite the connections between the sociological project writ-large and the quest of African-American sociologists in particular, the latter remained little regarded in the profession for years to come. While providing an overview of the contributions of African-American sociologists and the assessments made by other scholars about those contributions, this essay focuses upon the ways by which African-American sociologists have depicted the social character of black Americans. This essay also accounts for the ways that such scholars have introduced or enriched the standard paradigms and methodologies employed in American sociology, and documents the legacy that these efforts had on later sociological depictions of African Americans.