Race and Class Politics in New York City Before the Civil War


Book Description

Challenging the studies of several historians regarding 19th-century politics, Anthony Gronowicz reveals how the Democratic Party employed the racist ideology of democratic republicanism to shape the political values of New York's labor force. This insightful volume enriches one's understanding of antebellum politics, economics, and culture. Illustrations.




Caribbean New York


Book Description

Since 1965, West Indians have been emigrating to the United States in record numbers, and to New York City in particular. Caribbean New York shows how the new immigration is reshaping American race relations and sheds much-needed light on factors that underlie some of the city's explosive racial confrontations. Philip Kasinitz examines how two forces--racial solidarity and ethnic distinctiveness--have helped to shape the identity of New York's West Indian community. He compares "new" (post-1965) immigrants with West Indians who arrived earlier in the century, and looks in detail at the economic, political, and cultural rules that Afro-Caribbean immigrants have played in the city during each period.




Closest of Strangers: Liberalism and the Politics of Race in New York


Book Description

'The Closest of Strangers' is a superb and sometimes controversial book about the tragic flaws inn the racial politics of New York City and the nation and how we can begin to heal our wounds in the 1990s.




The Politics of Race in New York


Book Description

Black suffrage was a crucial and volatile issue in the North during the Civil War era. In The Politics of Race in New York, Phyllis F. Field studies the development of racial policies in the Empire State. Asserting that it is not possible to understand the move toward black suffrage by examining national trends and the actions of individual politicians, she takes a close look at the social context of reform.Field assesses popular reaction to the idea of black suffrage by systematically analyzing the results of a series of referenda on the issue held in New York State between 1846 and 1869. Tracing the relation between changes in public opinion and the positions taken by political parties, Field concludes that party leaders tried both to express the views of their constituents and to mold those views so as to strengthen and unify their own political organizations. Inevitably, this intrusion of political considerations in the issue of race had long-term consequences for the process of social change in the United States.The Politics of Race in New York shows clearly how, in 1870, black suffrage could be achieved even though the battle for black equality had yet to begin.




The Politics of Race in New York


Book Description

Black suffrage was a crucial and volatile issue in the North during the Civil War era. In The Politics of Race in New York, Phyllis F. Field studies the development of racial policies in the Empire State. Asserting that it is not possible to understand the move toward black suffrage by examining national trends and the actions of individual politicians, she takes a close look at the social context of reform.Field assesses popular reaction to the idea of black suffrage by systematically analyzing the results of a series of referenda on the issue held in New York State between 1846 and 1869. Tracing the relation between changes in public opinion and the positions taken by political parties, Field concludes that party leaders tried both to express the views of their constituents and to mold those views so as to strengthen and unify their own political organizations. Inevitably, this intrusion of political considerations in the issue of race had long-term consequences for the process of social change in the United States.The Politics of Race in New York shows clearly how, in 1870, black suffrage could be achieved even though the battle for black equality had yet to begin.




Noxious New York


Book Description

Examines the culture, politics, and history of the movement for environmental justice in New York City, tracking activism in four neighborhoods on issues of public health, garbage, and energy systems in the context of privatization, deregulation, and globalization. Racial minority and low-income communities often suffer disproportionate effects of urban environmental problems. Environmental justice advocates argue that these communities are on the front lines of environmental and health risks. In Noxious New York, Julie Sze analyzes the culture, politics, and history of environmental justice activism in New York City within the larger context of privatization, deregulation, and globalization. She tracks urban planning and environmental health activism in four gritty New York neighborhoods: Brooklyn's Sunset Park and Williamsburg sections, West Harlem, and the South Bronx. In these communities, activism flourished in the 1980s and 1990s in response to economic decay and a concentration of noxious incinerators, solid waste transfer stations, and power plants. Sze describes the emergence of local campaigns organized around issues of asthma, garbage, and energy systems, and how, in each neighborhood, activists framed their arguments in the vocabulary of environmental justice. Sze shows that the linkage of planning and public health in New York City goes back to the nineteenth century's sanitation movement, and she looks at the city's history of garbage, sewage, and sludge management. She analyzes the influence of race, family, and gender politics on asthma activism and examines community activists' responses to garbage privatization and energy deregulation. Finally, she looks at how activist groups have begun to shift from fighting particular siting and land use decisions to engaging in a larger process of community planning and community-based research projects. Drawing extensively on fieldwork and interviews with community members and activists, Sze illuminates the complex mix of local and global issues that fuels environmental justice activism.




David Dinkins and New York City Politics


Book Description

As the first African American elected mayor of New York City, David Dinkins underwent intense scrutiny—first from the black community, then from white liberal supporters, the media, and the city's electorate. Wilbur C. Rich focuses on the critical role played by the New York City media in the perception of mayoral leadership. Using interviews and words of journalists, Rich examines media coverage as both the architect and challenger of Dinkins' image. The making and unmaking of David Dinkins not only exposes much about the agency of African American politicians, but also reveals the fragility of electoral coalitions.




The Future of Us All


Book Description

Before the next century is out, Americans of African, Asian, and Latin American ancestry will outnumber those of European origin. In the Elmhurst-Corona neighborhood of Queens, New York City, the transition occurred during the 1970s, and the area's two-decade experience of multiracial diversity offers us an early look at the future of urban America. The result of more than a dozen years' work, this remarkable book immerses us in Elmhurst-Corona's social and political life from the 1960s through the 1990s. First settled in 1652, Elmhurst-Corona by 1960 housed a mix of Germans, Irish, Italians, and other "white ethnics." In 1990 this population made up less than a fifth of its residents; Latin American and Asian immigrants and African Americans comprised the majority. The Future of Us All focuses on the combined impact of racial change, immigrant settlement, governmental decentralization, and assaults on local quality of life which stemmed from the city's 1975 fiscal crisis and the policies of its last three mayors. The book examines the ways in which residents--in everyday interactions, block and tenant associations, houses of worship, small business coalitions, civic rituals, incidents of ethnic and racial hostility, and political struggles against overdevelopment, for more schools, and for youth programs--have forged and tested alliances across lines of race, ethnicity, and language. From the telling local details of daily life to the larger economic and regional frameworks, this account of a neighborhood's transformation illuminates the issues that American communities will be grappling with in the coming decades.




The New Jim Crow


Book Description

One of the New York Times’s Best Books of the 21st Century Named one of the most important nonfiction books of the 21st century by Entertainment Weekly‚ Slate‚ Chronicle of Higher Education‚ Literary Hub, Book Riot‚ and Zora A tenth-anniversary edition of the iconic bestseller—"one of the most influential books of the past 20 years," according to the Chronicle of Higher Education—with a new preface by the author "It is in no small part thanks to Alexander's account that civil rights organizations such as Black Lives Matter have focused so much of their energy on the criminal justice system." —Adam Shatz, London Review of Books Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Most important of all, it has spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists and organizations motivated by Michelle Alexander's unforgettable argument that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." As the Birmingham News proclaimed, it is "undoubtedly the most important book published in this century about the U.S." Now, ten years after it was first published, The New Press is proud to issue a tenth-anniversary edition with a new preface by Michelle Alexander that discusses the impact the book has had and the state of the criminal justice reform movement today.




The Caribbeanization of Black Politics


Book Description

In The Caribbeanization of Black Politics, Sharon D. Wright Austin explores the impact of ethnic diversification of African American communities on the prospects for black political empowerment. Focusing on Boston, Chicago, Miami, and New York City—cities that for the last several years have experienced an influx of black immigrants—she surveyed more than two thousand African Americans, Cape Verdeans, Haitians, and West Indians. Although many studies conclude that African American group consciousness causes them to participate in politics at higher rates when socioeconomic status is controlled for, Wright Austin analyzes whether this is true for other black groups. She assesses the current political incorporation of these groups by looking at data on public officeholders and by examining political coalitions and conflicts among the groups, and she also discusses the possible future of black political development in these cities.