The Multiracial Promise

The Multiracial Promise

Author: Gordon K. Mantler

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2023-02-07

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 1469673878

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In April 1983, a dynamic, multiracial political coalition did the unthinkable, electing Harold Washington as the first Black mayor of Chicago. Washington's victory was unlikely not just because America's second city was one of the nation's most racially balkanized but also because it came at a time when Ronald Reagan and other political conservatives seemed resurgent. Washington's initial win and reelection in 1987 established the charismatic politician as a folk hero. It also bolstered hope among Democrats that the party could win elections by pulling together multiracial urban voters around progressive causes. Yet what could be called the Washington era revealed clear limits to electoral politics and racial coalition building when decoupled from neighborhood-based movement organizing. Drawing on a rich array of archives and oral history interviews, Gordon K. Mantler offers a bold reexamination of the Harold Washington movement and moment. Taking readers into Chicago's street-level politics and the often tense relationships among communities and their organizers, Mantler shows how white supremacy, deindustrialization, dysfunction, and voters' own contradictory expectations stubbornly impeded many of Washington's proposed reforms. Ultimately, Washington's historic victory and the thwarted ambitions of his administration provide a cautionary tale about the peril of placing too much weight on electoral politics above other forms of civic action—a lesson today's activists would do well to heed.


Book Synopsis The Multiracial Promise by : Gordon K. Mantler

Download or read book The Multiracial Promise written by Gordon K. Mantler and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2023-02-07 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In April 1983, a dynamic, multiracial political coalition did the unthinkable, electing Harold Washington as the first Black mayor of Chicago. Washington's victory was unlikely not just because America's second city was one of the nation's most racially balkanized but also because it came at a time when Ronald Reagan and other political conservatives seemed resurgent. Washington's initial win and reelection in 1987 established the charismatic politician as a folk hero. It also bolstered hope among Democrats that the party could win elections by pulling together multiracial urban voters around progressive causes. Yet what could be called the Washington era revealed clear limits to electoral politics and racial coalition building when decoupled from neighborhood-based movement organizing. Drawing on a rich array of archives and oral history interviews, Gordon K. Mantler offers a bold reexamination of the Harold Washington movement and moment. Taking readers into Chicago's street-level politics and the often tense relationships among communities and their organizers, Mantler shows how white supremacy, deindustrialization, dysfunction, and voters' own contradictory expectations stubbornly impeded many of Washington's proposed reforms. Ultimately, Washington's historic victory and the thwarted ambitions of his administration provide a cautionary tale about the peril of placing too much weight on electoral politics above other forms of civic action—a lesson today's activists would do well to heed.


The Multiracial Promise

The Multiracial Promise

Author: Gordon Keith Mantler

Publisher:

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781469673882

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"Harold Washington was the first African American mayor of Chicago. Elected in 1983 by a multiracial coalition of voters, his victory was seen as a rebuke of the city's longstanding machine politics. Washington's Political Education Project, formed in 1984, helped organize this emerging Democratic coalition and brought him growing influence over national politics as the party sought a viable alternative to Reagan Republicanism. This book is less a biography than a narrative and analysis of Chicago's complicated role in late twentieth century American political history. Mantler places Harold Washington at the center of a complicated, multiracial political movement. The coalition politics associated with Washington's rise has lived on and is now regarded as the foundation of the contemporary Democratic Party electorate"--


Book Synopsis The Multiracial Promise by : Gordon Keith Mantler

Download or read book The Multiracial Promise written by Gordon Keith Mantler and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Harold Washington was the first African American mayor of Chicago. Elected in 1983 by a multiracial coalition of voters, his victory was seen as a rebuke of the city's longstanding machine politics. Washington's Political Education Project, formed in 1984, helped organize this emerging Democratic coalition and brought him growing influence over national politics as the party sought a viable alternative to Reagan Republicanism. This book is less a biography than a narrative and analysis of Chicago's complicated role in late twentieth century American political history. Mantler places Harold Washington at the center of a complicated, multiracial political movement. The coalition politics associated with Washington's rise has lived on and is now regarded as the foundation of the contemporary Democratic Party electorate"--


A Promise And A Way Of Life

A Promise And A Way Of Life

Author: Becky Thompson

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2001-08-07

Total Pages: 518

ISBN-13: 1517914639

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The first in-depth look at white people’s activism in fighting racism during the past fifty years. Not since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, when many white college students went south to fight against Jim Crow laws, has white antiracist activity held the public’s attention. Yet there have always been white people involved in fighting racism. In this passionate work, Becky Thompson looks at white Americans who have struggled against racism, offering examples of both successes and failures, inspirations, practical philosophies, and a way ahead. A Promise and a Way of Life weaves an account of the past half-century based on the life histories of thirty-nine people who have placed antiracist activism at the center of their lives. Through a rich and fascinating narrative that links individual experiences with social and political history, Thompson shows the ways, both public and personal, in which whites have opposed racism during several social movements: the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, multiracial feminism, the Central American peace movement, the struggle for antiracist education, and activism against the prison industry. Beginning with the diverse catalysts that started these activists on their journeys, this book demonstrates the contributions and limitations of white antiracism in key social justice movements. Through these stories, crucial questions are raised: Does antiracist work require a repudiation of one’s whiteness or can that identity be transformed through political commitment and alliances? What do white people need to do to undermine white privilege? What would it take to build a multiracial movement in which white people are responsible for creating antiracist alliances while not co-opting people of color? Unique in its depth and thoroughness, A Promise and a Way of Life is essential for anyone currently fighting racism or wondering how to do so. Through its demonstration of the extraordinary personal and social transformations ordinary people can make, it provides a new paradigm for movement activity, one that will help to incite and guide future antiracist activism.


Book Synopsis A Promise And A Way Of Life by : Becky Thompson

Download or read book A Promise And A Way Of Life written by Becky Thompson and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2001-08-07 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first in-depth look at white people’s activism in fighting racism during the past fifty years. Not since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, when many white college students went south to fight against Jim Crow laws, has white antiracist activity held the public’s attention. Yet there have always been white people involved in fighting racism. In this passionate work, Becky Thompson looks at white Americans who have struggled against racism, offering examples of both successes and failures, inspirations, practical philosophies, and a way ahead. A Promise and a Way of Life weaves an account of the past half-century based on the life histories of thirty-nine people who have placed antiracist activism at the center of their lives. Through a rich and fascinating narrative that links individual experiences with social and political history, Thompson shows the ways, both public and personal, in which whites have opposed racism during several social movements: the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, multiracial feminism, the Central American peace movement, the struggle for antiracist education, and activism against the prison industry. Beginning with the diverse catalysts that started these activists on their journeys, this book demonstrates the contributions and limitations of white antiracism in key social justice movements. Through these stories, crucial questions are raised: Does antiracist work require a repudiation of one’s whiteness or can that identity be transformed through political commitment and alliances? What do white people need to do to undermine white privilege? What would it take to build a multiracial movement in which white people are responsible for creating antiracist alliances while not co-opting people of color? Unique in its depth and thoroughness, A Promise and a Way of Life is essential for anyone currently fighting racism or wondering how to do so. Through its demonstration of the extraordinary personal and social transformations ordinary people can make, it provides a new paradigm for movement activity, one that will help to incite and guide future antiracist activism.


The Promise of Rest

The Promise of Rest

Author: Reynolds Price

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2010-06-15

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 1451603118

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In this stunning and fully independent conclusion to A Great Circle, Reynolds Price tells the complex, moving story of a man's return home to die of AIDS and of the unexpected effect that his arrival -- and his death -- has on his family. Wade Mayfield's parents are separated, but for the remaining months of his life they and their friends come together to care for Wade with the love they can muster. They are unprepared, however, for the astonishing mystery Wade has prepared to reveal once he is gone -- a mystery that initiates the possible reunion of his parents and promises to continue the proud traditions of a complex, multiracial family.


Book Synopsis The Promise of Rest by : Reynolds Price

Download or read book The Promise of Rest written by Reynolds Price and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this stunning and fully independent conclusion to A Great Circle, Reynolds Price tells the complex, moving story of a man's return home to die of AIDS and of the unexpected effect that his arrival -- and his death -- has on his family. Wade Mayfield's parents are separated, but for the remaining months of his life they and their friends come together to care for Wade with the love they can muster. They are unprepared, however, for the astonishing mystery Wade has prepared to reveal once he is gone -- a mystery that initiates the possible reunion of his parents and promises to continue the proud traditions of a complex, multiracial family.


Troubling the Family

Troubling the Family

Author: Habiba Ibrahim

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 0816679185

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Troubling the Family argues that the emergence of multiracialism during the 1990s was determined by underlying and unacknowledged gender norms. Opening with a germinal moment for multiracialism—the seemingly massive and instantaneous popular appearance of Tiger Woods in 1997—Habiba Ibrahim examines how the shifting status of racial hero for both black and multiracial communities makes sense only by means of an account of masculinity. Ibrahim looks across historical events and memoirs—beginning with the Loving v. Virginia case in 1967 when miscegenation laws were struck down—to reveal that gender was the starting point of an analytics that made categorical multiracialism, and multiracial politics, possible. Producing a genealogy of multiracialism's gendered basis allows Ibrahim to focus on a range of stakeholders whose interests often ran against the grain of what the multiracial movement of the 1990s often privileged: the sanctity of the heteronormative family, the labor of child rearing, and more precise forms of racial tabulation—all of which, when taken together, could form the basis for creating so-called neutral personhood. Ibrahim concludes with a consideration of Barack Obama as a representation of the resurrection of the assurance that multiracialism extended into the 2000s: a version of personhood with no memory of its own gendered legacy, and with no self-account of how it became so masculine that it can at once fill the position of political leader and the promise of the end of politics.


Book Synopsis Troubling the Family by : Habiba Ibrahim

Download or read book Troubling the Family written by Habiba Ibrahim and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Troubling the Family argues that the emergence of multiracialism during the 1990s was determined by underlying and unacknowledged gender norms. Opening with a germinal moment for multiracialism—the seemingly massive and instantaneous popular appearance of Tiger Woods in 1997—Habiba Ibrahim examines how the shifting status of racial hero for both black and multiracial communities makes sense only by means of an account of masculinity. Ibrahim looks across historical events and memoirs—beginning with the Loving v. Virginia case in 1967 when miscegenation laws were struck down—to reveal that gender was the starting point of an analytics that made categorical multiracialism, and multiracial politics, possible. Producing a genealogy of multiracialism's gendered basis allows Ibrahim to focus on a range of stakeholders whose interests often ran against the grain of what the multiracial movement of the 1990s often privileged: the sanctity of the heteronormative family, the labor of child rearing, and more precise forms of racial tabulation—all of which, when taken together, could form the basis for creating so-called neutral personhood. Ibrahim concludes with a consideration of Barack Obama as a representation of the resurrection of the assurance that multiracialism extended into the 2000s: a version of personhood with no memory of its own gendered legacy, and with no self-account of how it became so masculine that it can at once fill the position of political leader and the promise of the end of politics.


The Challenge of Interracial Unionism

The Challenge of Interracial Unionism

Author: Daniel Letwin

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9780807846780

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This study explores a tradition of interracial unionism that persisted in the coal fields of Alabama from the dawn of the New South through the turbulent era of World War I. Daniel Letwin focuses on the forces that prompted black and white miners to colla


Book Synopsis The Challenge of Interracial Unionism by : Daniel Letwin

Download or read book The Challenge of Interracial Unionism written by Daniel Letwin and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study explores a tradition of interracial unionism that persisted in the coal fields of Alabama from the dawn of the New South through the turbulent era of World War I. Daniel Letwin focuses on the forces that prompted black and white miners to colla


The Mendacity of Hope

The Mendacity of Hope

Author: Roger D. Hodge

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2011-10-04

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 0062011278

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Americans find themselves in genuine confusion and dismay concerning the actions of President Obama’s administration. None of Obama’s most important campaign promises—ending the Iraq war, abolishing torture, closing GuantÁnamo, changing Washington’s culture of corruption—has come to pass. Instead, he has bailed out the bankers, escalated the conflict in Afghanistan, launched a new war in Libya, and institutionalized the civil rights abuses of the Bush regime. Roger D. Hodge makes the provocative case that substantive reform was never even on the table. Behind the euphoria of Obama’s victory was in fact a business-as-usual corporate machine. Obama’s presidency has demonstrated that mere hope is never enough, that change will come only when the American people take charge of their own politics. A brilliantly crafted call to arms, The Mendacity of Hope offers an essential analysis of the American political system and the powerful interests that control our government.


Book Synopsis The Mendacity of Hope by : Roger D. Hodge

Download or read book The Mendacity of Hope written by Roger D. Hodge and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans find themselves in genuine confusion and dismay concerning the actions of President Obama’s administration. None of Obama’s most important campaign promises—ending the Iraq war, abolishing torture, closing GuantÁnamo, changing Washington’s culture of corruption—has come to pass. Instead, he has bailed out the bankers, escalated the conflict in Afghanistan, launched a new war in Libya, and institutionalized the civil rights abuses of the Bush regime. Roger D. Hodge makes the provocative case that substantive reform was never even on the table. Behind the euphoria of Obama’s victory was in fact a business-as-usual corporate machine. Obama’s presidency has demonstrated that mere hope is never enough, that change will come only when the American people take charge of their own politics. A brilliantly crafted call to arms, The Mendacity of Hope offers an essential analysis of the American political system and the powerful interests that control our government.


The Politics of Multiracialism

The Politics of Multiracialism

Author: Heather M. Dalmage

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2004-06-23

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780791461549

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A provocative analysis of current thought and discourse on multiracialism.


Book Synopsis The Politics of Multiracialism by : Heather M. Dalmage

Download or read book The Politics of Multiracialism written by Heather M. Dalmage and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2004-06-23 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative analysis of current thought and discourse on multiracialism.


Quest for Equality

Quest for Equality

Author: Neil Foley

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2010-05

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 9780674050235

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Neil Foley examines the complex interplay among regional, national, and international politics that plagued the efforts of Mexican Americans and African Americans to find common ground in ending employment discrimination and school segregation.


Book Synopsis Quest for Equality by : Neil Foley

Download or read book Quest for Equality written by Neil Foley and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-05 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neil Foley examines the complex interplay among regional, national, and international politics that plagued the efforts of Mexican Americans and African Americans to find common ground in ending employment discrimination and school segregation.


When the Stars Begin to Fall

When the Stars Begin to Fall

Author: Theodore R. Johnson

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press

Published: 2021-05-04

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 0802157874

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A “persuasive . . . heartfelt and vividly written” call to counter systemic racism and build national solidarity in America (Publishers Weekly). The American Promise enshrined in our Constitution states that all men and women are inherently equal. And yet racism continues to corrode our society. If we cannot overcome it, Theodore Johnson argues, the promise that made America unique on Earth will have died. In When the Stars Begin to Fall, Johnson presents a compelling blueprint for the kind of national solidarity necessary to mitigate racism. Weaving together history, personal memories, and his family’s multi-generational experiences with racism, Johnson posits that solutions can be found in the exceptional citizenship long practiced in Black America. Understanding that racism is a structural crime of the state, he argues that overcoming it requires us to recognize that a color-conscious society—not a color-blind one—is the true fulfillment of the American Promise. Fueled by Johnson’s ultimate faith in the American project, grounded in his family’s longstanding optimism and his own military service, When the Stars Begin to Fall is an urgent call to undertake the process of overcoming what has long seemed intractable.


Book Synopsis When the Stars Begin to Fall by : Theodore R. Johnson

Download or read book When the Stars Begin to Fall written by Theodore R. Johnson and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “persuasive . . . heartfelt and vividly written” call to counter systemic racism and build national solidarity in America (Publishers Weekly). The American Promise enshrined in our Constitution states that all men and women are inherently equal. And yet racism continues to corrode our society. If we cannot overcome it, Theodore Johnson argues, the promise that made America unique on Earth will have died. In When the Stars Begin to Fall, Johnson presents a compelling blueprint for the kind of national solidarity necessary to mitigate racism. Weaving together history, personal memories, and his family’s multi-generational experiences with racism, Johnson posits that solutions can be found in the exceptional citizenship long practiced in Black America. Understanding that racism is a structural crime of the state, he argues that overcoming it requires us to recognize that a color-conscious society—not a color-blind one—is the true fulfillment of the American Promise. Fueled by Johnson’s ultimate faith in the American project, grounded in his family’s longstanding optimism and his own military service, When the Stars Begin to Fall is an urgent call to undertake the process of overcoming what has long seemed intractable.