“American Dream Deferred is a pioneering work of scholarship about one of the most significant struggles of the modern black freedom movement, one that has been almost completely untold until now. Frederick Gooding’s vivid narrative about the long and difficult struggle of African-Americans who worked in the federal government reveals that more than laws and regulations were needed to gain equality and respect. Only when black men and women in the nation’s capital organized for themselves did they gain the rights and opportunities they had always deserved.” —Michael Kazin, Georgetown University
“In this timely and critically important study, Frederick Gooding, Jr.’s meticulous research illuminates the understudied history of African American federal workers from World War II to the Reagan era. With perceptive analysis, Gooding, Jr. explores not only the causes and costs of systemic racism in the federal workplace, but also the heroic efforts made by ‘black collared’ workers to uproot it.” —Margaret Rung, Roosevelt University
"American Dream Deferred presents a cogent analysis of the persistence of racial inequities in the one institution commonly considered the benchmark of meritocratic impartiality. It is also an important meditation on the capacity of institutionalized racism to limit upward mobility, inflict psychological damage, and quash dreams of a better life."—Michael Dennis, Arcadia University