Using the term "exodus politics" to theorize the valorization of black male
leadership in the movement for civil rights, Robert J. Patterson explores the ways in which the
political strategies and ideologies of this movement paradoxically undermined the collective
enfranchisement of black people. He argues that by narrowly conceptualizing civil rights in only
racial terms and relying solely on a male figure, conventional African American leadership, though
frequently redemptive, can also erode the very goals of civil rights. The author
turns to contemporary African American writers such as Ernest Gaines, Gayl Jones, Alice Walker, and
Charles Johnson to show how they challenge the dominant models of civil rights leadership.
He draws on a variety of disciplines--including black feminism, civil rights history, cultural
studies, and liberation theology--in order to develop a more nuanced formulation of black
subjectivity and politics. Patterson's connection of the
concept of racial rights to gender and sexual rights allows him to illuminate the literature's
promotion of more expansive models. By considering the competing and varied political interests of
black communities, these writers reimagine the dominant models in a way that can empower communities
to be self-sustaining in the absence of a messianic male leader.