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More copies of this ISBNeBook editionsRobert Clifton Weaver and the American City: The Life and Times of an Urban Reformerby Wendell E. Pritchett
Review-A-Day"The story of Weaver's life, as told in Wendell Pritchett's new biography, Robert Clifton Weaver and the American City, points to a lesser-known narrative in the long struggle for racial equality — one focused on the politics of Northern cities rather than Southern churches, on economic claims more than moral ones, on regulatory agencies and cabinet meetings rather than lunch-counter sit-ins and mass marches. Yet Pritchett's biography also offers another story..." Kim Phillips-Fein, The Nation (read the entire Nation review) Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:From his role as FDR's "negro advisor" to his appointment, under Lyndon Johnson, as the first secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Robert Clifton Weaver was one of the most influential domestic policy makers and civil rights advocates of the twentieth century. This volume, the first biography of the first African American to hold a cabinet position in the federal government, rescues from obscurity the story of a man whose legacy continues to impact American race relations and the cities in which they largely play out. Tracing Weaver's career through the creation, expansion, and contraction of New Deal liberalism, Wendell Pritchett illuminates his instrumental role in the birth of almost every urban initiative of the period, from public housing and urban renewal to affirmative action and rent control. Beyond these policy achievements, Weaver also founded racial liberalism, a new approach to race relations that propelled him through a series of high-level positions in public and private agencies working to promote racial cooperation in American cities. But Pritchett shows that despite Weaver's efforts to make race irrelevant, white and black Americans continued to call on him to mediate between the races — a position that grew increasingly untenable as Weaver remained caught between the white power structure to which he pledged his allegiance and the African Americans whose lives he devoted his career to improving. A crucial and largely unknown chapter in the history of American liberalism, this long-overdue biography adds a new dimension to our understanding of racial and urban struggles, as well as the complex role of the black elite in modern U.S. history. Review:"Weaver (1907-1997), the first black cabinet secretary (Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1966-1968) has become 'a marginal figure in our public discussion today,' but 'for almost half of the century,' Pritchett asserts, Weaver 'shaped the development of American racial and urban policy.' Pritchett follows Weaver from the Roosevelt to the Johnson administrations, guiding the reader safely through the mine field of acronymic government agencies, various foundations and academic institutions (he was the first president of Baruch College) in which Weaver played a role. Weaver's targets were racially restrictive covenants and the entrenchment of segregation in both public housing policy and government supported loans; compromises involving the latter made him a controversial figure as the civil rights movement burgeoned. Pritchett's biography is an exhaustive but well-paced account of a life more absorbed by political process and research than by social or political drama. Yet, as Pritchett shows, Weaver 'was instrumental in the implementation of every major urban initiative, including public housing, urban renewal, affirmative action, rent control, and fair housing.'" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:"We need to know the story of Robert Clifton Weaver, and to know more about the period between the Harlem Renaissance and the 1960s, a period for which African American history has not been explored with quite the same fervor as other periods. This important and accessible biography sheds light on these overlooked subjects and pays a previously unrecognized historical debt." Arnold R. Hirsch, author of Making the Second Ghetto Review:"Wendell E. Pritchett's engaging biography of Robert Clifton Weaver is a tour de force. Appointed by President Johnson as the first secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Weaver was the first African American to hold a cabinet position. However, few Americans are aware that Weaver was also an important figure in shaping the development of American racial and urban policy, and one of the nation's foremost authorities on urban issues. Pritchett brilliantly captures the life and contributions of this great racial pioneer and in the process reveals how racial tensions profoundly influenced battles over the future of American cities." William Julius Wilson, author of When Work Disappears Review:"Wendell Pritchett's fascinating book delivers just what any reader wants in a good historical biography. Robert Weaver emerges as a complex, talented man caught in the contradiction between seeking a race-blind world and serving his race. And his personal struggles and achievements bring to light in a compelling way the shifting terrain of federal governmental authority, urban policy, and civil rights over the course of the twentieth century. This is a wonderful portrait of a man and, through that man, of dreams won and lost for a new, more equitable urban America." Lizabeth Cohen, author of A Consumers' Republic About the AuthorWendell Pritchett is professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Office of Research, Planning, and Policy for the City of Philadelphia. He is the author of Brownsville, Brooklyn: Blacks, Jews, and the Changing Face of the Ghetto, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1 Preparing the Talented Tenth: The Weaver Family and the Black Elite 2 Fighting for a Better Deal 3 A Liberal Experiment: Race and Housing in the New Deal 4 Creating a New Order: Black Politics in the New Deal Era 5 World War II and Black Labor 6 Chicago and the Science of Race Relations 7 Searching for a Place to Call Home 8 New York City and the Institutions of Liberal Reform 9 The First Cabinet Job 10 The Path to Power 11 The Kennedy Years: A Reluctant New Frontier 12 Fighting for Civil Rights from the Inside 13 The Great Society and the City 14 HUD, Robert Weaver, and the Ambiguities of Race 15 Power and Its Limitations 16 The Great Society, High and Low 17 An Elder Statesman in a Period of Turmoil Conclusion Abbreviations Used in Notes Notes Figure Credits Index What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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