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A New Direction for Black Urban History

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A New Direction for Black Urban History Adam Green. Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940-1955. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. xiv + 230 pp. $35.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-226-30641-4. Joe William Trotter, Jr.. Black Milwaukee: The Making of an Industrial Proletariat, 1915-1945. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007. liv + 432 pp. $30.00, paper, ISBN 978-0-252-07410-3. Reviewed by Andrew Kersten Published on H-Urban (May, 2007) Among the most significant historiographical methods, DuBois surveyed Philadelphia, revealing trends to emerge from the turbulent 1960s were the depth of social problems for black urbanites: investigations into black urban history. The two poverty, crime, violence, disease, and discrimina‐ books under review--Black Milwaukee and Selling tion. Others such as Charles S. Johnson, Robert E. the Race--represent important milestones and, Park, and E. Franklin Frazier followed in DuBois's perhaps with the latter, a new direction in the his‐ footsteps.[2] Frazier had the greatest influence on torical writing on African Americans and cities in the growing literature about African Americans the United States. and cities, emphasizing the perils of urban blacks There are a number of very fne historio‐ and detailing the ways that racism and prejudice graphical essays about black urban history.[1] For limited African Americans. While noteworthy, this our purposes, let me summarize the highlights. early sociological literature offered little historical The scholarly literature about black urban life ex‐ analysis, tended to generalize the black urban ex‐ tends back one hundred years. In 1899, W. E. B. perience as if there were few meaningful geo‐ DuBois published The Philadelphia Negro: A So‐ graphic differences in the United States, and cial Study, which set the mold for many such glossed over the ways in which blacks found ways blacks-in-the-city monographs. Using sociological to survive and thrive. H-Net Reviews In the 1960s and 1970s, social scientists re‐ lived for at least four main reasons. First, Trotter's newed their interests in the black urban experi‐ thesis is powerful. In contrast to those who had ence. This time, history was a larger part of the emphasized the development of a ghetto, Trotter story. Many of these investigations used the "ghet‐ argued that transformation of black workers from to" as an organizing principle--Kenneth L. Kus‐ the rural, agricultural South to the urban, indus‐ mer, A Ghetto Takes Shape: Black Cleveland, trial North changed the socioeconomic and politi‐ 1870-1930 (1976); Gilbert Osofsky, Harlem: The cal circumstances for African Americans. Their Making of a Ghetto, 1890-1930 (1963); and Allan proletarianization was not merely a function of Spear, Black Chicago: The Making of a Negro jobs, but it created an outlook, a consciousness, Ghetto, 1890-1920 (1967). In these studies, the pri‐ about class and race. And, black Milwaukeeans mary historical phenomenon was white racism, were very active in shaping their city. Second, which forced African American communities to Trotter notes that the black community in Mil‐ develop into segregated neighborhoods where waukee was not monolithic. Although it was poverty rates were high, educational opportuni‐ largely a product of southern migrants, by 1945 ties were limited, and life was often brutal and there was a black bourgeoisie built on top of the short. black working class. Trotter nicely summarizes Both Joe W. Trotter Jr. and Adam Green, the divisions and conflicts within the black com‐ whose books are under review here, have taken munity. A third strength is the book's sociological exception with the ghetto synthesis. Neither underpinnings. In other words, the tables, charts, would deny the hardships and horrors of the and maps about employment, population, and black urban experience. In fact, both Black Mil‐ housing still remain useful and relevant. Fourth, waukee and Selling the Race affirm what social Trotter deftly connected local events and move‐ scientists have known since 1899. Yet, both Trot‐ ments to national ones. Thus the labor movement, ter and Green argue that the historical processes the national civil rights movement, and national at work in these cities were much more complex. political parties (Democratic, Republican, and So‐ Additionally, like other historians such as Earl cialist) all have relevance and deep meaning in Lewis, James Borchert, and James Grossman, Trot‐ this history of an average Midwestern city. ter and Green focus on the creative ways in which All professional reviews of the book were African Americans used their organizations and overwhelmingly positive. According to reviews in their culture to overcome racial discrimination history, sociology, and interdisciplinary journals, and prejudice.[3] Trotter blazed new ground, courageously argued Black Milwaukee, which is now twenty-two his thesis despite the skeptical eyes of non-Marx‐ years old, needs no introduction or a second re‐ ists, seamlessly connected local, urban, black, and view. It has been standard reading among schol‐ labor history, and skillfully recounted the ways ars and students for decades. The second edition that black Milwaukeeans forged their own lives. is well worth reading. It has a new preface and ac‐ The book has received some criticism. Trotter's knowledgments, an essay on African American emphasis on proletarianization limited discus‐ urban history since 1985, a prologue on the nine‐ sions of other processes such as the creation of a teenth-century roots of Milwaukee's black com‐ black bourgeoisie. Another critic stated that the munity, a new epilogue on post-World War II Mil‐ book suffered from its chronological limit of the waukee, and four brief essays by William P. Jones, thirty years before and after the world wars. In‐ Earl Lewis, Alison Isenberg, and Kimberly L. terestingly, Trotter has fxed this in the second Phillips. In my view, the book has been so long edition with a new epilogue. Others questioned whether Trotter's characterization of the "ghetto 2 H-Net Reviews synthesis" was completely accurate. More signifi‐ nightclubs, African American music quickly ex‐ cantly, while Trotter clearly showed black ac‐ panded into the recording studios and then onto tivism in Milwaukee, some commentators won‐ broadcast, commercial radio. In other words, dered if there was still more to say about the black music engaged modernity by engaging the black experience, especially how African Ameri‐ marketplace. And, like so many other commercial‐ cans viewed their surroundings. ized aspects of culture, this marriage of music and This last point is particularly important in un‐ market was fraught with tensions about secular derstanding Adam Green's Selling the Race: Cul‐ versus sacred and about the control of ideas, cul‐ ture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940-1955 tural expression, and labor. But, as with other ar‐ and its place in this historiography. Like Trotter, eas of modern American culture, the effects of Green is reacting to the scholarly literature on the modern music were clear, if not typical. Those at ghetto, which appears to emphasize victims over the forefront--singers like Mahalia Jackson, Louis actors. Stridently, Green argues that blacks were Jordan, and Muddy Waters as well as radio per‐ not passive when they encountered the modern sonalities like Al Benson--became enormously city. Rather, they embraced modernity and in so popular, influential, and wealthy. For example, in doing "engendered a unique sense of group life 1948, Benson, who made millions of dollars from and imagination, restructuring ideas of racial his job, was elected "mayor of Brownzeville" identity and politics that remain infuential today" through a poll conducted by the Chicago Defend‐ (p. 1). Green does not shy away from the dark side er. of the city; in fact, it is central to his story. But he Green makes similar cases for two cultural maintains that black Chicagoans did not merely icons in print: the Associated Negro Press (ANP) survive racial discrimination and prejudice. and Ebony magazine. Both were centered in Rather, they transformed their culture in their Chicago and, more than contemporary competi‐ struggle to improve their lives, and in doing so tors like the Chicago Defender, both clearly forged transformed America. a tight relationship between the city's black com‐ Unlike Trotter's work or any recent books on munity and the national scene. In other words, the African American community in Chicago, through the work of Claude Barnett of the ANP Green's eschews sociological analysis. Rather, he and John Harold Johnson of Ebony, Green shows focuses on the cultural moments of modernity how Chicago black culture became "a national that shaped African Americans in the city and cultural idiom though the 1940s and 1950s" (p. elsewhere. He begins with a wonderful chapter 94). on the 1940 American Negro Exposition, which The growth in the cultural link between black was among the frst modern public black expres‐ Chicago and the nation reached a culminating sions. Although illustrative, it was, as Green point, a "moment of simultaneity" (p. 179), in 1955 demonstrates, a complete failure, fnancially and with the murder of Emmett Till. Green nicely re- culturally. It failed to accomplish its goal of com‐ contextualizes this horrific story of an African ing to grips with modern history and placing American young man from Chicago who was African Americans into a national, and not south‐ killed while visiting relatives in Mississippi. Till's ern, context. murder was not merely another example of the In three other cultural endeavors, black vulnerabilities, perils, and oppressions that blacks Chicagoans were far more successful and influen‐ experienced. Rather, Green illustrates how this tial. For example, by the early 1940s, Chicago had murder became a way for Chicago blacks, espe‐ become a Mecca for black musicians. Beginning in cially those attuned to the culture like Barnett and 3 H-Net Reviews Johnson, to engage the nation in a dialogue about Notes race in the United States and struggles to make [1].
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