America's First Black Socialist: The Radical Life of Peter H. Clark

America's First Black Socialist: The Radical Life of Peter H. Clark by Nikki M. Taylor (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2013. 308 pp., ISBN: 978-0-8131-4077-3), reviewed by Eric R. Jackson (jacksoner@nku.edu), Associate Professor of History, Department of History and Geography; Director - Black Studies Program; Northern Kentucky University.In search of his plethora of goals and aspirations for persons of African descent in Cincinnati, Ohio, as well as nationally, such as full citizenship and access to quality public education, Peter Humphries Clark defies the traditional classification of most persons of color who were born in the United States during the nineteenth century. At times Clark was a Socialist, a community activist, a member of the Republican Party, and a supporter of the Democratic Party. Although he also was inspired by a variety of abolitionists from the antebellum period and helped to set a firm foundation for numerous radical Civil Rights leaders who would follow him in later decades, Clark has been virtually forgotten today by most scholars and the nation at-large. However, preeminent social historian Nikki M. Taylor's book seeks to change this perspective.In America's First Black Socialist: The Radical Life of Peter H. Clark Taylor discusses how as an activist, educator, intellectual, and politician Clark was a highly complex and a consistently enigmatic figure to most people. However, he also was a pioneering educator who taught thousands of African Americans students during his fifty year teaching career. Simultaneously Clark also was involved in many hotly debated topics of his day, such as the use of segregated educational facilities, the capabilities of African Americans to lead local schools as an administrator, as well as the social movement for full citizenship and the participation of Black Americans in the nation's political system, on all levels. While he fought for these and many other goals, Clark became the first African American public school principal in the state of Ohio, a member of both major political parties, and a Socialist.Within these over three-hundred carefully-written pages, Taylor contends that Clark "embodied the black radical tradition - meaning he refused to embrace dominant racist mores, values, history, or social hierarchies, and waged an unrelenting battle against oppression" (p. 5). Furthermore, the author claims that Clark "constructed and pursued a revolutionary vision of America in which the highest ideals of freedom, democracy, and equality reigned" (p. 5).Finally, Taylor concludes that "Clark's life proves that nineteenth-century African Americans were astute political players who believed politics and racial uplift- broadly defined - to be a panacea for racial inequality and unfreedom" [and] that African Americans saw political power before and after Emancipation and Reconstruction as central to their definition of freedom (p. 15).In the first three chapters, Taylor discusses Clark's childhood and early formative years as a young adult living in Cincinnati, Ohio during the antebellum period. In addition, the author describes how Clark gradually developed his Radical Black Nationalist perspective, why he supported a national campaign for African American emigration, and what led to his emergence as one of the preeminent African American leaders in the "Queen City" and beyond during the middle of the antebellum period. According the author, during these years Clark was merely building on the multitude of ideas and concepts that he had absorbed as a young person growingup in Cincinnati who was exposed to a variety of concepts that most African American Cincinnatians could not comprehend fully nor had no interest in examining at the time. But despite his atypical upbringing as an African American resident in the city, and experience with American racism almost daily as a youngster, Taylor concludes that very quickly Clark became "the dean of black upward mobility" (p. …