MANFACTURING URBAN AMERICA: POLITICALLY ENGAGED URBAN BLACK WOMEN, RENEWED FORMS OF POLITICAL CENSORSHIP, AND UNEVEN LANDSCAPES OF POWER IN NORTH MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Brittany M Lewis IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Eden Torres and Catherine Squires, Co-advisors May 2015 i © Brittany M Lewis 2015 Acknowledgements The writing of this dissertation has been one of the most significant academic challenges I have ever had to face. Without the support, patience and guidance of the following people, this study would not have been complete. It is to them that I owe my deepest gratitude and respect. • To Co-Advisors Eden Torres and Catherine Squires who tirelessly worked with me through multiple drafts of my work, provided wisdom, knowledge, and commitment to the highest standards which inspired and motivated me to push myself when even I believed I had reached my limits. • To Dissertation Committee Chair Miriam Duchess Harris for not only being a great sounding board and intellectual collaborator, but being a remarkable friend. You are a true inspiration as I continue to develop the tools that I need to maintain life as an engaged Black feminist politics scholar and mother. • To Dissertation Committee Member Rose Brewer I thank you for being such a remarkable example of an activist scholar you give me hope that it is possible. • To my Doctoral Preliminary Exam Warriors Reina Rodriguez, Daniel Topete, and Rene Esparza thank you for providing feedback on my works-in-progress and sustaining my spirit through that grueling process. Thank you to Dr. Zenzele Isoke for being a resource for me as an early graduate student wrestling with the questions that my research would aim to examine. • To the Black leaders in North Minneapolis and their allies that shared their life histories and intimate political realities with me I thank you for trusting me with such powerful information. Theatrice Williams, Matthew Ramadan, Richard Parker, Richard Jefferson, Richard Brustad, Ishmael Israel, Annie Balentine, Gloria Jackson, Vanessa Dillon, Candace Bakion, Jackie Byers, Neva Walker, Terra Cole, and Kenya McKnight. • To my colleagues at the National Conference of Black Political Scientists (NCOBPS) and specifically Julia Jordan-Zachary and Nikol Alexander-Floyd who lead the Association for the Study of Black Women in Politics (ASBWP), thank you for providing a place and space for my work to flourish. • To my former colleagues in the Political Science Department at Augustana College David Dehnel, Margaret Farrar, Mariano Magalhaes, Christopher Whitt, and Xiaowen Zhang thank you for believing in my work and providing me the time and space to complete the dissertation it was an invaluable experience. • Lastly, to former Minnesota State Representative Neva Walker whose commitment to bringing the Black urban poor back to the decision making table inspired the questions that my research asked. i Dedication This thesis is dedicated first and foremost to my beautiful daughters Brooklynn and Naima. You ground me in a fast-paced world of continuous uncertainty. To my husband Brandon, whose unwavering support has enabled me to pursue a life as a momma PhD, please know that your daily sacrifices can never be forgotten. Lastly, to my parents Terri and David Lewis, it was a lifetime of support from you in a world that too often devalues Black lives that bred this fierce Black feminist who stands before you today. There is not a day that goes by that I am not grateful for your willingness to allow me to chart my own path to greatness and in doing so I found a way to give back to the community that nurtured me and push a social justice agenda forward that centers the embattled political realities of Black women lives. ii Abstract Racialized public policies further concentrated poverty in central cities across the nation, necessitating the continued deconstruction and redevelopment of the “slums” staging the next sequence of dramatic acts in Black women’s history of resistance. In most discussions of inner-city renewal, Black women are framed as objects for study: single mothers, "welfare queens," drug addicts, and other stereotypes abound, situating these women at best as victims, at worst as sources of urban decay. But Black women share a long legacy of urban activism in local neighborhoods that, if recognized, could shift the conversations that shape the urban renewal agenda. My research complicates the study of race, gender, and urban politics by centering Black women’s activist experiences to better understand how communities experience and resist the racialized legacies of housing segregation, redlining, and concentrated poverty in North Minneapolis, MN. By magnifying how Black women “talk back” within a competitive urban context framed by dominant material and political interests I shed new light on the ways that Black women undermine the states claim for regulatory control over Black urban space. I investigate Black women's actions in: (1) public housing; (2) community economic development; and (3) efforts to utilize neighborhood associations as participatory empowerment bodies for all those affected by urban transformation. All of these domains of neighborhood resilience and renewal have been influenced by hegemonic urban renewal discourse, policies, and practices. My research explains how this discourse has shaped a political environment that does not invite rigorous debate and critique by all affected residents. Yet, politically engaged urban Black women continue to challenge these restrictive forms of privatized political engagement exposing uneven landscapes of power. As such, my dissertation asks the following questions: (1) How can the strategic political actions of urban Black women challenge dominant power and its discursive frame, particularly when Black women are often framed as culprits in urban decay? (2) What social, political, and/or economic barriers hamper Black women’s efforts to reframe the urban renewal agenda considering local histories of urban development (and underdevelopment) as well as the intersections of race, class, gender, and gentrification? And (3) what can we learn about citizen participation and the limits of dominant frameworks for urban renewal by centering the resistant innovations of Black women activists? iii Table of Contents List of Tables ……………………………………………v List of Figures ………………………………………………vi Introduction ……………………………………………1 Chapter 1 ………………………………………………39 Chapter 2 ………………………………………………86 Chapter 3 ………………………………………………132 Chapter 4 ………………………………………………167 Chapter 5 ………………………………………………193 Conclusion ……………………………………………..220 Bibliography …………………………………………...232 iv List of Tables Table 1: Minneapolis Spokesman-Recorder Coverage May 26-June 8, 2011 ……………………………………………………………………151 Table 2: Examples of Relevant Quotations in the Minneapolis Star Tribune ……………………………………………………………………155 Table 3: Minneapolis Star Tribune Coverage May 22-June 5, 2011 ……………………………………………………………………163 v List of Figures Figure 1: 1935 City of Minneapolis Planning Map ……………………………………………………………………………………43 Figure 2: Near North Slum Clearance Area ………………………………………………………….………………………...45 Figure 3: Sumner Field Homes Projects ………………………………………….………………………………………...45 Figure 4: Glenwood Housing Projects .…………………………………………………………………………………...49 Figure 5: Near North Major Renewal Projects Slum Clearance Areas .…………………………………………………………………………………...53 Figure 6: Northside Resident Redevelopment Council Election Districts ……………………………………………………………………………………65 vi Yearning: Black Women Resisting By Building Risky Political Partnerships Ever present, often ignored but completely inescapable, their plurality is seen as monolithic and depicted as the antithesis of the ‘robust American’ body. Fending their shadows as American alter political egos, black women paint varied portraits of the shadow boxer as radical: as lone warrior, successful corporate fund-raiser for the beneficiary of progressive issues, individual survivalist, and community worker receptive to the leadership of non-elites in opposing state-corporate dominance. - Joy James, Shadowboxing1 As a child I was always enamored by the courage and spirit of Harriet Tubman. Tubman was an enslaved Black woman who escaped slavery to then only return to the South to help her people find their way to freedom through the Underground Railroad. At risk of her own death Tubman went back into the hell that was chattel slavery in order to help her people to break the physical and psychological chains that confined them. Tubman was what the nation and its southern slaveholding class feared the most. A Black woman who yearned to be in relationship with her people resisted the institutionally racist practice of ensuring that African slaves did not maintain a distinct language, culture, and communal identity often through intimidation, and physical violence. It was Tubman’s willingness to risk her own livelihood to build risky political partnerships with her people that freed them from their chains. In the dark shadows of the night her people would be welcomed back into communal solidarity and be given a new lens to which they could analyze the hypocrisy of America—as an engaged Black feminist politics scholar I seek the courage that propelled Tubman into action. 1 In her book Shadowboxing, Joy James historicizes the emergence of a radical Black feminist politic as a resistant communal response to the political contradictions of our