African Americans and Utopia: Visions of a Better LifeAuthor(s): Lyman Tower Sargent Source: Utopian Studies , Vol. 31, No. 1 (2020), pp. 25-96 Published by: Penn State University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/utopianstudies.31.1.0025 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Penn State University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Utopian Studies This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Tue, 02 Feb 2021 16:25:31 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms African Americans and Utopia: Visions of a Better Life Lyman Tower Sargent abstract While there have been studies of individual African American writers and, recently, work on African American authors of science fiction, some of whom wrote utopias and, more often, dystopias, there has been no attempt to examine the many ways that African Americans have contributed to utopianism. To fill that gap, this article gives an overview of African American contributions to utopianism in literature, inten- tional communities, and utopian social theory. keywords: utopia, African American, intentional communities, social theory, political theory If we are dissatisfied with our situation in life, we often dream of how our life could be improved.