The Black Digital Elite: African American Leaders of the Information Revolution

Most discussions of the digital divide focus on the gap between African Americans and others when it comes to using, and benefiting from, the technological and business opportunities of the information age. Although many African Americans are locked out of the information revolution, others are an integral part of its development and progress. Barber profiles 26 of those leaders here, engagingly and informatively blending biography with insight and analysis.

Most discussions of the digital divide focus on the gap between African Americans and others when it comes to using, and benefiting from, the technological and business opportunities of the information age. Although many African Americans are locked out of the information revolution, others are an integral part of its development and progress. Barber profiles 26 of them here, engagingly and informatively blending biography with insight and analysis.

Documenting history as it is being made, this book features achievers in all fields of relevant endeavor, including scientists, business leaders, power brokers, and community leaders. Among them are Robert Johnson, CEO of Black Entertainment Television; Richard Parsons, CEO of AOL Time-Warner; congressmen and other policymakers in Washington, D.C.; and men and women who are working to bridge the digital divide in satellite radio, web-based portals, and on the ground with IT workshops. This book is not just about business success or technological progress. The African American digerati are solving one of the great social challenges of the 21st century: creating a black community that is prosperous in a society that has changed from being a land-based industrial society to a cyberspace-based information society.

John T. Barber is the Deputy Chief Learning Officer of the Ballistic Missile Defense University in Washington, D.C., and an Adjunct Professor in the Communications Department at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Dr. Barber has over twenty-five years of experience as a media analyst, communications educator and scholar and broadcasting practitioner. His previous book, The Information Society and the Black Community (Praeger, 2000), was one of the first to provide a comprehensive examination of the prospects and pitfalls of a historically disadvantaged group in a period of rapid technological advances and economic growth in America.