Synopses & Reviews
The term and#147;community organizerand#8221; was deployed repeatedly against Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign as a way to paint him as an inexperienced politician unfit for the presidency. The implication was that the job of a community organizer wasnand#8217;t a serious one, and that it certainly wasnand#8217;t on the list of credentials needed for a presidentialand#160;rand#233;sumand#233;.and#160;In reality, community organizers have played key roles in the political lives of American cities for decades, perhaps never more so than during the 1970s in Chicago, where African Americans laid the groundwork for further empowerment as they organized against segregation, discrimination, and lack of equal access to schools, housing, and jobs.
Inand#160;Crucibles of Black Empowerment, Jeffrey Helgeson recounts the rise of African American political power and activism from the 1930s onward, revealing how it was achieved through community building. His book tells stories of the housewives who organized their neighbors, building tradesmen who used connections with federal officials to create opportunities in a deeply discriminatory employment sector, and the social workers, personnel managers, and journalists who carved out positions in the white-collar workforce. and#160;Looking closely at black liberal politics at the neighborhood level in Chicago, Helgeson explains how black Chicagoans built the networks that eventually would overthrow the cityand#8217;s seemingly invincible political machine.
Review
and#8220;As an alternative to what he sees as the and#8216;hard empiricismand#8217; in humanistic and social science research, Green emphasizes and#8216;the city as a site of creativity, rather than constraint.and#8217; In doing so, he makes a series of significant contributions to knowledge that will influence broad interdisciplinary audiences in African American studies, urban and labor studies, public history, and museum studies. Rich and convincing,
Selling the Race will also appeal to a wide range of scholars interestedand#160; in cultural policy and decision making.and#8221;andlt;Joe William Trotter, Jr., Mellon Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University and author of
The African American Experienceandgt;
andgt;
Review
"Selling the Race is a terrific book, one that should have a long historiographical influence. . . . All social scientists and humanists will find Green's book worthy of a serious and close reading."
Review
"From slavery's origins in 1619 Virginia to the current crises of family disorganization, poverty, and violence, African Americans all too often appear as victims of U.S. society. Taking a different approach, Green (NYU) emphasizes the vibrant, positive cultural life of black Chicago in the years immediately preceding the rise of Martin Luther King Jr. and the nationally recognized Civil Rights Movement. . . . Recommended."
Review
"Selling the Race is a terrific book, one that should have a long historiographical influence. . . . All social scientists and humanists will find Greens book worthy of a serious and close reading."-Andrew E. Kersten, H-Net Review
Review
"Green communicates forcefully the problems and possibilities posed by an era of tremendous social and poliitical change and potent forces of resistance to those changes. This technique reflects Green's broader effort to situate African Americans at the centre rather than at the margins of modernity, and, likewise, as agents in its manifestation rather than victims."
Review
and#8220;Brilliant. By looking at cultural work and the reconstitution of community in wartime and postwar black Chicago, Adam Green provides a window into the emergence of modern black urban life. Whether heand#8217;s exploring the fusion of sacred and secular blues or the writings of Chicago-school sociologists, Green beautifully demonstrates how the and#8216;cultural entrepreneursand#8217; of the period offered lessons for living, utopian dreams, a route to self-transformation, a means of survival, momentary challenges to white supremacy even as they sometimes reinforced black subordination, and the basis for a black economy.and#8221;andlt;Robin Kelley, author of
Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imaginationandgt;
Review
and#8220;
Selling the Race is the most important study of 1940s black Chicago to appear in sixty years. It will change ways of thinking and writing about black urban history.and#8221;andlt;James Gregory, author of
The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed Americaandgt;
Review
"Much like the race sellers and buyers in his book, Green imagines a much wider horizon of innovative ideas that shaped a national race culture."
Review
"An important additon to African American urban and business history."
Review
"The writing is crisp, the topics were chosen with great thought, the research is thorough, and the arguments are logical. This is a marvelous book, a must-read for everyone interested in the history of Chicago, as well as mid-century African American history."
Review
"An intellectually rigorous, original work of scholarship that produces two important advances in African American studies. First, the book offers a thick description of mid-century Chicago-based African American cultural produciton. . . . Second, the book posits African American modernity as an emergent process of equivalence between city, or community, and nation."
Review
"This is a well-writtenand#160;book. Far too often, historians write primarily for other historians, and jargon and academic-speak can obfuscate rather than illuminate our history. Thanks to Garb's deep research, her lively prose and her narrative virtuosity, her compelling story of African-American pioneers in the ongoing--and unfinished--struggle for civil rights is that rare book that adds something new to our national conversation about race, cities and America, for scholars and general readers alike."
Review
and#8220;In this fascinating and original study, Margaret Garb traces the rise of black politics in Chicago from its mid-nineteenth-century origins to the early twentieth century.and#160; The book is a signal contribution to our understanding of the long civil rights movement on northern soil.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;By bringing post-bellum black Northern politics out from beneath the shadows of the South, Freedom's Ballot manages to radically alter the common story of the era of Reconstruction and Jim Crow.and#160;and#160; For Chicagoand#8217;s African American leaders, what W.E.B. DuBois called that and#8216;magnificent dramaand#8217; of ex-slaves to bring democracy to America, took on a very different character.and#160; As Margaret Garb powerfully demonstrates, uplift ideology and demands for inclusion took a backseat to more militant goals of political power and racial solidarity.and#160;and#160; Anyone interested in how the Windy City became a national center of black political power must read this book.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;In a masterful work that reveals the beauty of the historian's craft, Garb illuminates the ways in which politics and the political had multiple meanings for African Americans and their quest for freedom.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Crucibles of Black Empowermentand#160;successfully explores the motivations and sources of how community-based protest politics counterbalanced the apathy and connivance of establishment politics and politicians over one half-century in efforts aimed at improving black life in Chicago. The activists who made this reality are both known and unknown, and include Rev. Addie Wyatt, Ida B. Wells, and Lovelyn Evans in labor, social service, and employment, along with Tim Black, Sidney Williams, Ed and#8216;the Iron Masterand#8217; Wright, and Ed Doty in civil rights, politics, and labor.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Spanning five decades of history, Crucibles of Black Empowerment chronicles the community-based struggles waged by black Chicagoans against an unholy trinity of racial, class, and gender inequalities. Using identities forged by work, family, and community, they pursued individual opportunity and collective welfare through economic initiative, political mobilization, unionization, protest, and patient institution building. More than anything else, Jeffrey Helgeson champions the durability of black Chicago's pragmatic liberal tradition.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Jeffrey Helgeson's Crucibles of Black Empowerment is a sweeping, compelling, and original contribution to Chicago's rich African American history that addresses a wide range of subjects: individual and collective aspirations, the Second Great Migration, neighborhood activism, employment and housing discrimination, and political mobilizations in the mid-20th century, among other things.and#160; Grounded in exhaustive research, Helgeson's study meticulously reconstructs the contours of a liberal political culture in black Chicago that highlighted individual opportunity, pursued interracial coalitions, and advocated for governmental action to produce social change.and#160; On many levels this is a model study of black community politics and protest that should be required reading for anyone interested in Chicagoand#8217;sand#8212;and the country'sand#8212;troubled racial past.and#8221;
Review
andquot;Highly recommended.andquot;
Review
andldquo;Garb skillfully traces changes in both the citywide political system and the black response to the emergence of machine politics. . . . Freedomandrsquo;s Ballot is an important contribution to the growing body of literature on African American political development.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Helgeson focuses not on the local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League but on lesser-known local individuals and networks that tried to improve African Americansandrsquo; lives . . . This thoroughly researched, well-written volume marries the specific to the theoretical.andrdquo;
Synopsis
In
Selling the Race, Adam Green tells the story of how black Chicagoans were at the center of a national movement in the 1940s and and#8217;50s, a time when African Americans across the country first started to see themselves as part of a single culture. Along the way, he offers fascinating reinterpretations of such events as the 1940 American Negro Exposition, the rise of black music and the culture industry that emerged around it, the development of the Associated Negro Press and the founding of Johnson Publishing, and the outcry over the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till.
By presenting African Americans as agents, rather than casualties, of modernity, Green ultimately reenvisions urban existence in a way that will resonate with anyone interested in race, culture, or the life of cities.
Synopsis
Margaret Garbandrsquo;s
Freedomandrsquo;s Ballot reveals how black political power became formalized in Chicago following Emancipation. Garb shows how the broad political allegiances of the Civil War gave way to local race-conscious organizing, with blackness itself coming to the fore as a defining political quality and strength. Garb demonstrates the substantial changes in black politics in Chicago from 1872 to 1915, tracing its evolution from the idealism of the Reconstruction era, to a pragmatic alliance with the white Republican machine, and later to the beginnings of a more insular political machine in the Black Belt that was to last well into the twentieth century. By linking the history of black politics in Chicago to the rise of the machine politics, Garb shows the connections between favoritism and empowermentandmdash;and how they changed both the cityandrsquo;s politics and its physical form.
Synopsis
In the spring of 1915, Chicagoans elected the cityand#8217;s first black alderman, Oscar De Priest. In a city where African Americans made up less than five percent of the voting population, and in a nation that dismissed and denied black political participation, De Priestand#8217;s victory was astonishing. It did not, however, surprise the unruly group of black activists who had been working for several decades to win representation on the city council.
Freedomand#8217;s Ballotand#160;is the history of three generations of African American activistsand#151;the ministers, professionals, labor leaders, clubwomen, and entrepreneursand#151;who transformed twentieth-century urban politics. This is a complex and important story of how black political power was institutionalized in Chicago in the half-century following the Civil War. Margaret Garb explores the social and political fabric of Chicago, revealing how the physical makeup of the city was shaped by both political corruption and racial empowermentand#151;in ways that can still be seen and felt today.
Synopsis
Jeffrey Helgeson shows how twentieth-century black Chicagoans created and sustained race-conscious institutions and politics. Some of the cityandrsquo;s prominent political and cultural figures play roles in this story, but Helgeson focuses mostly on people who worked and lived outside the spotlight. Helgeson uncovers the domestic workers and housewives who organized their neighbors; the skilled building tradesmen who used connections to federal officials to create opportunities in a deeply discriminatory sector; the social workers, personnel managers, and journalists who carved out positions in the white-collar workforce while trying to use their position to open jobs to black workers. The results of these efforts remain open to debateandmdash;community institutions crumbled even as Harold Washington rose to become mayorandmdash;but, Helgeson shows, black Chicagoans engaged with the institutions of urban life in ways and to a degree not previously understood.
About the Author
Adam Green is associate professor of history at the University of Chicago.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION / From Party to Race
ONE / History, Memory, and One Manand#8217;s Vote
TWO / Setting Agendas, Demanding Rights, and the Black Press
THREE / Womenand#8217;s Rights, the Worldand#8217;s Fair, and Activists on the National Stage
FOUR / Challenging Urban Space, Organizing Labor
FIVE / Virtue, Vice, and Building the Machine
SIX / Representation and and#8220;Race Menand#8221;
EPILOGUE / Film, History, and the Birth of a Black Political Culture
Acknowledgments
Appendix 1: African American Political Leaders, 1870and#8211;1920
Appendix 2: Election Results for Mayoral and Aldermanic Candidates in the First, Second, and Third Wards, 1900and#8211;1920
Notes
Index