Synopses & Reviews
The radical black left that played a crucial role in twentieth-century struggles for equality and justice has largely disappeared. Michael Dawson investigates the causes and consequences of the decline of black radicalism as a force in American politics and argues that the conventional left has failed to take race sufficiently seriously as a historical force in reshaping American institutions, politics, and civil society.
African Americans have been in the vanguard of progressive social movements throughout American history, but they have been written out of many histories of social liberalism. Focusing on the 1920s and 1930s, as well as the Black Power movement, Dawson examines successive failures of socialists and Marxists to enlist sympathetic blacks, and white leftists' refusal to fight for the cause of racial equality. Angered by the often outright hostility of the Socialist Party and similar social democratic organizations, black leftists separated themselves from these groups and either turned to the hard left or stayed independent. A generation later, the same phenomenon helped fueled the Black Power movement's turn toward a variety of black nationalist, Maoist, and other radical political groups.
The 2008 election of Barack Obama notwithstanding, many African Americans still believe they will not realize the fruits of American prosperity any time soon. This pervasive discontent, Dawson suggests, must be mobilized within the black community into active opposition to the social and economic status quo. Black politics needs to find its way back to its radical roots as a vital component of new American progressive movements.
Review
Dawson offers a fresh interpretation of the largely unknown and often misrepresented history of black radicalism in an effort to chart a progressive path forward that will effectively challenge racial injustice, economic inequality, and imperialism. This provocative and enlightening book creatively fuses analytical history with political theory to diagnose what has ailed the American Left for decades. But it is not a pessimistic book. Rather, in the spirit of hope and possibility, it calls for utopian yet pragmatic political thinking that regards independent black political organizing not as a balkanizing force or distraction from the 'universal' fight for a democratic society, but as an indispensable element of any viable Left-wing politics. Clarence Lang - Dissent
Review
[An] important new book... Dawson's frontal challenge to liberal and social democratic pontificates and his passionate defense of the black revolutionary tradition is a great gift to all students, especially black youth who have been robbed of their own history. Dawson brings to life the complexity of building a black and multi-racial left and highlights the profound achievements of black leaders and organizations that were purged from popular history. He emphasizes several important leaders who are too-little known today: Hubert Harrison, Cyril Briggs, Harry Haywood, Claudia Jones, W.E.B. Du Bois, A. Philip Randolph, Paul Robeson, and Fannie Lou Hamer. By reminding us that black revolutionary action has a long and influential tradition that extends well beyond the '60s, Dawson challenges the white intellectuals who saw the unification of minority groups as a threat to their own interests... Dawson's historical analysis provides a model for reinvigorating the revolutionary organizations of today. Eric Mann
Review
Dawson is at his finest in exposing how many historians of the U.S. left have erased the black presence within American radicalism. Parallel to this 'whitewashing,' and perhaps a more nefarious form of political amnesia, has been the effort by some white scholars to blame the current fragmentation of the organized left on the profusion of racial, gender-based, and sexual 'identity politics.'...Blacks In and Out of the Left is an act of socially committed scholarship that deserves the widest possible reading public among students of African-American social movements, black political thought, public policy, labor and working-class history, and U.S. radicalism. Boston Review
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;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
The radical black left has largely disappeared from the struggle for equality and justice. Michael Dawson examines the causes and consequences, and argues that the conventional left has failed to take race seriously as a force in reshaping American institutions and civil society. Black politics needs to find its way back to its radical roots.
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.
Synopsis
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.
About the Author
Michael C. Dawson is John D. MacArthur Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the College at the University of Chicago.
University of Chicago
Table of Contents
List of Figures and Maps
Introduction
1. The Politics of Home in Hard Times
2. Community Development in an Age of Protest, 1935and#150;40
3. and#147;Will and#145;Our Peopleand#8217; Be Any Better Off after This War?and#8221;
4. A Decent Place to Live: The Postwar Housing Shortage
5. Capitalism without Capital: Postwar Employment Activism
6. Sources of Black Nationalism from the 1950s to the 1970s
7. Harold Washington: Black Power and the Resilience of Liberalism
Postscript: The Obamas and Black Chicagoand#8217;s Long Liberal Tradition
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index