The first entry in Robert C. Smith's Encyclopedia of African-American Politics is "Abolitionist Movement," running at 2½ pages. Keep leafing and you get to "Birth of a Nation," D.W. Griffith's 1915 film that celebrated the Ku Klux Klan as heroes of the Civil War and Reconstruction. The B's are meaty: A little farther back, find "black church," "black nationalism," "Black Panther Party" and "blackness" — "a problematic concept," Smith wrote. "That is, it is difficult to objectively define, and when defined it has multiple meanings."
In all, Smith, 56, an El Sobrante resident and San Francisco State University political science professor, wrote 400-plus entries about important court cases, speeches, events, presidents, wars, movements, acts of Congress, acts of courage and personalities — black and white, friends and foes.
The entries range from feminism (the longest) to the Freedman's Bureau, the Million Man March, the Rainbow Coalition, slavery, Vernon Jordan, riots and Ward Connerly — cross-referenced with "Uncle Tom." Apparently, the first reference book of its kind, the encyclopedia was published in May by Facts on File.
| Continue Rona Marech's San Francisco Chronicle article "El Sobrante scholar writes the book on black politics"
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