For those of you who liked the whole "black-working class-strivers" vibe of the Michelle Obama story, I thought I should pull back the curtain a bit and make some recommendations. First Nicholas Lemann's book The Promised Land is just a monster. I read it a few months before I got the assignment, and was just stunned by Lemann's fusion of on the ground reporting and policy. Barack Obama should read this book (he may have already) because it shows how the failure of brains and good intentions empowers cynicism and cowardice. As a side note, it depicts Chicago's black population in truly loving detail. All the pathology is there--the projects, the gangs, the unplanned pregnancies. But the heart is there too, the sense of striving, the desire to work, the fight to be better. People describe The Promised Land as a tragedy, but I never read it that way. Also Lemann did much of his reporting in this august pages. Here are two links to the original stories.
Second, I wanted to reccommend St. Clair Drake's Black Metropolis. I think Drake wrote the book in the 40s or something, but man, does it ever hold up. It's a kind of precursor to The Promised Land, in that it's mostly concerned with orgins of the South Side of Chicago. I read Black Metropolis after I got the assignment, and really got hip to why South Siders had this rep for being so damn bougie. The answer? They had reason to be. But all jokes aside, it's a mighty, mighty history. The South Side is so different than the rest of black America--and yet it embodies just about all of it. I don't know how that can be true, but it is. Anyway I wanted to really recommend those books to you guys.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
The Promised Land is on my bookshelf right now and is an essential read for black culture in this country. I've been re-educating myself since my early twenties on black history. Once I read it, all the things I've been doing or heard about all my life made a lot more sense.
I will look for the other book online.
Any recommendations for a good book on Reconstruction that won't put me to sleep???
TNC, good suggestions. I highly, highly recommend a couple groundbreaking books by one of my former professors, Mary Patillo-McCoy: Black on the Block and her follow-up, Black Picket Fences.
Those books completely changed my view of urban America, sociology, the African-American community and the black middle class. They are must-reads for anyone looking to gain some insight into 21st-Century African-American life.
Links for the two books below:
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Picket-Fences-Privilege-Middle/dp/0226649288
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Block-Politics-Race-Class/dp/0226649326/ref=pd_sim_b_3
I think lemann's latest is about Reconstruction--or maybe just its failure.
Ta-Nehisi,
Your mention of Lehmann's book The Promised Land reminds me of another book with a similar title, Manchild in the Promised Land. Have you read it? I can't say I have, but we had this book in my house when I was a kid, and one day my mother foisted it on a black friend of mine. I don't think he read it either (I saw it covered with a layer of dust in his house a week later), but it seems to have gotten rave reviews by readers, decades after it was first published.
Chicago Magazine just had a cover story on Michelle Obama that covers some of the middle class and black issues.
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/February-2009/The-Making-of-a-First-Lady/
TNC,
as a current Chicagoan who lived on the South Side when I first moved here 8 years ago, but now lives on the West Side with my native West Side fiance, I wonder why the South Side has gotten so much more love than the West Side.
When I was first getting to know my partner, I didn't understand why the West Side part of his family seemed so embittered about the South Siders-- I mean, it's like the Civil War. Seriously. -- but I'm starting to kind of get it now.
Don't get me wrong, the South Side deserves much love, but black Chicago is bigger than the South Side and a quick goggle search turns up oodles of tomes on this one set of neighborhoods and near silence on the other major settlement site for black migrants from the South.
I'm originally from Atl. so, I have no real dog in this fight, but I do find it interesting.
What does 'bougie' mean?
Deva,
Read the Lemann book. He goes into all of that. The way he tells it is that the South Side was seen as the more glamorous part of town--like Sugar Hill here in Harlem, but not quite. And the West side was seen as the poorer section. Someone from Chicago can school me on this. But Lemann really works it. I gotta say, I love McAuthurs :)
Blast from the past... I had to read both books as an Af-Am major in college. But it's been a long time, the content mostly forgotten...
Ilya:
Bougie is short for "bourgeoisie."
The Promised Land is a great book that's worth re-reading (I think I will). A minor note embedded in it that rarely gets much attention is the fact that most of the stuff that's considered dysfunctional about the welfare system - i.e. seperating the safety net from moving people back into work and promoting community initiatives were mandated by the Nixon administration which had an utterly cynical approach to "the war on poverty."
"Any recommendations for a good book on Reconstruction that won't put me to sleep???"
For starters on the impact of Emancipation and the Reconstruction era, check out Leon Litwak's "Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery"
Thanks TNC,
I will pick up the book. And I love that you know McArthur's! That's a Westside gem for sure. I used to complain all the time that there was nothing approaching good Southern style soul food in the Chi. (At popular soul chains like J & Js they fry the fish and the chicken in the same grease. What is that about?!)
Then my partner took me to McArthur's and I had to admit, that's serious business over there. Literally finger lickin' good. ;0)
I've just been discovering Lemann's Comment pieces in the New Yorker. Excellent, excellent writer.
Speaking as the "white devil" let me explain and conversate about my limited knowledge of the south v west side divide in Chicago.
Blacks emigrated to the south side in large numbers starting around 1919. Blacks emigrated to the west side in large numbers starting in the early 1950's.
The south side residents had an earlier start on moving into the working/middle classes and achieved political power earlier.
The later west side immigrants found an industrial economy in slow decline and had fewer opportunities to move up. After King was assassinated huge parts of the commercial areas of the black west side went up in flames. Those areas still bare the scars and vacant lots of those riots. The south side had less unrest and maintained viable neighborhood shopping areas longer.
Now today huge areas of both the west and south sides are underpopulated and ghettoes. Many/most of the working class/middle class blacks have moved to the suburbs. Particularly the south suburbs. There is going to be hell to pay after the next census and redistricting happens in Chicago Wards. One ward already has changed from black power to honky power and a few black alderman are likely to be out of power after the next census. We're likely to see 2-3 fewer black alderman and additional white or hispanic alderman. The hispanic population was increasing prior to the economic downturn. The black population was down and the white population was relatively steady or more slowly declining.
As a political junkie I will enjoy the show.
There are still relatively intact middle income black areas on the south side. Chatham comes to mind. It is an area that MAY be in decline though as the highrise projects have largely been torn down and those folks move to other neighborhoods bringing violence and more social problems.
There are fewer intact middle income black areas on the west side. There were never as many in the first place.
That ends my honky explanation of the south/west divide in Chicago. Those who have a better grasp of the situation can correct if I'm wrong. It has been known to happen.
Just wanted to thank you for a good (and long overdue!) post there, Coates.
Rock on, my brother.
The West of The Chi is more known for crime than the South Side. There are swaths of neighborhoods today that look like Beirut did in the 1980s. There was just more concentrated poverty. The South Side does have more affluent neighborhoods of working class African-Americans than the west side. Bronzeville, Hyde park, Chatham, Gresham, etc.
However, the key thing to keep in mind is that within Chicago's neighborhoods, you can also have distinct "pockets" of income that vary from "well-to-do" all the way to "piss-poor" within the distance of crossing the street or turning the corner. Places like South Commons/Prairie Courts or Kimbark, north of 63rd street vs Kimbark south of 63rd street used to show very stark contrasts.
Awe shoot, Coates. I wanted to tell why I come here.
Because you're smart, thinking and Black. Yes, you being Black had something to do with it, I admit freely.
Plus, I appreciate you opening the comments.
Since I never commented on Daily Dish, you can't miss what you never had. But, I was sorta sad when Ambinder turned off the comments.
First time I read you it was the Cosby piece, and I was like, ' I might not agree with the Brotha, but I like how his mind thinks. '
Great recommendations, both of them.
I also recommend both of Timuel Black's books:
Bridges of Memory, Volumes 1 and 2
There's also a local author. The man made his money in real estate, and turned author in the later part of his life. His name is Dempsey Travis. He's written a series of books over the years about Black Chicago, Black politics in Chicago, Harold Washington.
Being a South Side girl, the West Side was always seen as ' The Other.' Yes, those were Black folks over there, but they were ' West Side' Black folks. It was as foreign a land to me as the ' North Side.'
South vs West
There has always been a divide between the South and West sides of Chicago. Bougie Southsiders look at Westsiders as the country bumpkins. The brains and vitality of black Chicago was from the South Side. A few examples -
John Johnson - founder of Johnson Publishing (Ebony, JET)
George Johnson - founder of Johnson Products (Afro Sheen, etc)
Robert Abbott - founder of the Chicago Defender, which was taking south by the Pullman porters and encouraged blacks to migrate north. Also gave an outlet to writers like Langston Hughes and Gwendolen Brooks.
The west side was lily white through the 1950's. Then there was the infamous blockbusting and white flight. It never had the cohesiveness of the South Side.
This rivalry is still expressed in high school basketball. West siders look at it as a way to triumph over those bougie South siders. Go to a Chicago Public League championship game. Simeon (and Derrick Rose) of the South Side were on top for a couple of years. Then Marshall (West Side) became top dog again after Rose's departure. Right now, Whitney Young (Michelle's alma mater - and a magnet school so neither south nor west) is the best in the CPL. Two West side schools, North Lawndale and Marshall are next in the pecking order.
Love the Lehmann book. I first read it in the undergrad American Studies program at the University of alabama, assigned by a prof. from chicago, Lynn Adrian, who now heads the dept.
One of the great values of this book is that it helps to push back against the widely distributed conservative meme that the failures of the War on Poverty/Great Society programs were somehow inevitable and somehow point to the inevitable failure of any attempts by the state to address inequality. Lehmann makes it clear that it was a politiclaly driven clusterfuck in execution initially, never addressed and in fact worsened by the Nixon administrations. and, that Johnson deserves so much more credit than he gets, especially compared to the hagiogaphizing of Kennedy.
Can somebody clarify for me if WILDCATS (Goldie Hawn, Nipsey Russell, Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson, Mykelti Williamson, et. al.) took place on the South Side or the West Side?
Thanks!
WILDCATS was on the North Side - it was filmed at Lane Tech HS which is two miles west of Wrigley Field on Addison.
To put it in Hip Hop terms:
The South Side - think Common and Kanye.
The West Side - think Crucial Conflict, Twista, and Do or Die.
Not saying they represent the full depth of those communities, but they are reflections of them.
Yeah, they didn't make a distinction in Wildcatsm but it was filmed on the Northside. Would it be safe to assume that the Black students were from either the west side or Cabrini?
There are significant numbers of blacks on the north side of Chicago. The area which once was Cabrini Green has largely been gentrified, but there are still blacks around.
The lakefront neighborhoods from Irving Park Road to the Evanston border are roughly 20-30 percent black. Although the numbers have been declining because of gentrification. Many African and Caribbean immigrants live along the north lakefront along with native born blacks.
In my neighborhood, Uptown, there used to be more bougie or buppie black folk. With some of the gentrification in the greater Bronzeville area and areas north and south of Hyde Park many have left hoping to find better property appreciation and perhaps more "community" in those areas.
Just one other bit of information. The Black south side is one of the most studied areas in the country. Various University of Chicago departments have been studying Black neighborhoods on the south side since the 20's. The sociology, psych, urban planning departments been using it for studies for years.
Drake is fabulous. He didn't live nearly as long as Du Bois, but like Du Bois you have the feeling that, despite living into old age, he died too soon. I work on Ghana and hope someday to make use of some of the research he did on urbanization while he was living there during the 1960s.
Well this is a change of subject. I hope people don't mind.
I live in a white middle class neighborhood that spit its vote about fifty fifty between Obama and McCain. The Republicans here are mostly the rich/selfishh type as opposed to the religious fanatic type or the pig ignorant hater Sarah Palin type.
So I went to our little neighborhood political discssion group that the conversation was about the Obamas.
After awhile I realized that to my Republican neighbors the Obamas were not a mystery; they are the Cosbys,especially Michelle who they conceptualize as Felicia Rashad.
Anyway thanks for the book recommendations. I'm always up for learning more about my fellow Americans.
When asked by Maddow whether he thought the Cosby show had influenced the election, Cosby claimed he never thought about it but was "wondering what Homer Simpson's people are gonna do in four years."
I'd suggest some fiction by Leon Forrest. A great writer, professor and son of Chicago who passed some time ago, his masterwork, Divine Days, was epic. Check screenwriter David Mills' notes below, compiled for a Wash. Post piece that never ran. http://undercoverblackman.blogspot.com/2007/01/remembering-leon-forrest-pt-1.html
http://undercoverblackman.blogspot.com/2007/01/remembering-leon-forrest-pt-2.html
From African American Review:
Leon Forrest was the author of four novels that effectively created an oral history of his mythical territory of Forrest County, which strongly resembles Chicago. In the first three works - There Is A Tree More Ancient Than Eden (1973), The Bloodworth Orphans (1977), and Two Wings to Veil My Face (1984) - he explored the spiritual core of African American experience through the blending of mythic, biblical, folk, and Shakespearean discourses. His last novel, Divine Days (1992), was consciously modeled on James Joyce's Ulysses in terms of its ambition to articulate the essence of a culture in a massive work designed, as Forrest phrases it in this interview, to be the "Great World Novel." He also published a collection of essays, Relocations of the Spirit, in 1994.
My wife and I liked your Michelle column a lot, and will check these books out. This is something we're beginning to understand. She's an Ob/Gyn on the south side, and it's just a totally crazy scene. The cross section of situations she sees has a range I didn't think possible, everything from normal to harrowing war stories to scenes of love and striving so intense your heart practically explodes.
Ed Laumann, also of the University of Chicago, did a study on where Chicago residents find their sex partners. He found that South Side black families view with suspicion any West Side blacks that start dating their young people. Having just climbed into the ranks of the middle class, South Siders worried that they risked backsliding by mingling with West Siders.
It is a different situation with poor blacks on the South Side. In many cases, they are not aware of middle class black neighborhoods not too far from where they live. When I was an undergrad at U of C, I volunteered as an adult literacy tutor. One nice spring day, I suggested to my student, a woman in her 40's, that we go to the main quad and grab a bench. I no longer paid much attention to the physical appearance of the quad, but she was stunned. Despite living only about 5 miles from the U of C campus, she had no idea such a spot of greenery existed on the South Side.
For a historical overview of the foundations of black Chicago in the 20th century, you might want to consult Black Chicago's First Century, Volume I, 1833-1900 (University of Missouri Press, 2005).
For decades previous to the Great Migration of 1916-1918, black Chicagoans contributed to the growth and dvelopment of the city. In fact, when 50,000 migrants arrived as part of the Great Migration, they were met by 50,000 black Chicagoans who had migrated previous to their sojourn. The groups merged and created the Black Metropolis that Drake and Cayton wrote about in 1945. Independence of spirit, success in entrepreneurship and business, influence in politics and creativity in the performing arts mark the traits of black Chicago.
As to the schism between the divisions, South Side and West Side, consider it normal for a city where the South Side Irish and the North Side Irish argue over the White Sox and Cubs, respectively, and German Jews and Polish and Russian Jews divide over places of their nativity and former national cultures. You can add the Poles and Chinese populations who debate over cultural authenticity. Historically, the old West Side (1830s) predated the South Side settlements of the 1890s.