urban history

• 
• SOURCE: Crosscut
  10/15/2021
  

  Beware "Rising Crime" Rhetoric in Seattle Politics

  by Dan Berger

  Progressive prosecutor candidates like Nicole Thomas-Kennedy in Seattle reflect a growing social movement to reverse decades of failed "tough on crime" policies that have accomplished little but swell the ranks fo the incarcerated, says a historian of crime and punishment.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/17/2021
  

  Timuel Black, 102: Historian and Organizer of Black Chicago

  Timuel Black mobilized the political power of the predominantly Black South Side of Chicago, taught others — including a young Barack Obama — how to do the same, and in his final decades compiled oral histories giving voice to his community’s Black working class.

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• 10/17/2021
  

  "The Essential Kerner Commission Report" Links Past and Present, but Abridges the Committee's Process

  by James Thornton Harris

  The Kerner Commission shocked Lyndon Johnson and much of white America by insisting that "the Negro problem" was in fact a problem of pervasive white racism. Two books are essential reading for understanding the commission's work and it's unmet demands. 

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• SOURCE: Chicago Sun-Times
  10/13/2021
  

  Timuel Black, Historian and Civil Rights Activist, Dies at 102

  Among those expressing sadness at Mr. Black’s death was Barack Obama, who said “the city of Chicago and the world lost an icon with the passing of Timuel Black."

• 
• SOURCE: Chicago Sun-Times
  10/8/2021
  

  How the Chicago Fire Changed the City's Architecture

  Chicago-based historians D. Bradford Hunt and Dominic Pacyga argue that the Great Fire of 1871 did impact the city by inaugurating an age of big renewal plans, as well as through the city's prized architecture and parks. 

• 
• SOURCE: NextCity
  10/11/2021
  

  In Open Letter, City Planning Officials Acknowledge Agencies' Role in Racist Development Decisions

  "'Our society is structured around white supremacy,' Philadelphia Planning Commission head Eleanor Sharpe says. 'It’s not a debate, but there’s this fear to acknowledge it. That fear serves the retention of the systems that are not working'."

• 
• SOURCE: Public Books
  10/6/2021
  

  "No There There": Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on the Future of the Left

  "I’m sitting in the car, barreling down the highway, asking myself, 'What happened in my life that has put me in this position where I have to like listen to this &%$*@ nonsense?' I needed to leave. But like most people, I needed the health insurance."

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  10/11/2021
  

  "Many Saints" Misses Chance to Tell Key Moment of Newark History

  by Mary Rizzo and Whitney Strub

  The Sopranos prequel misses the chance to tell a rich story about the ethnic rivalries in Newark's city politics that unfolded in the 1960s.

• 
• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  10/5/2021
  

  Before Rhode Island's State House was Built, a Providence Mob Destroyed the Neighborhood

  A drunken sailor's brawl in 1831 kicked off four days of rioting targeting the free Black population of the Snowtown neighborhood; the stigma attached to the area allowed the state of Rhode Island to raze the area to build the state capitol. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Almanack
  10/3/2021
  

  An A-Z List of NYC Streets Named for Slaveowners

  by Alan Singer

  As Mayoral candidate Eric Adams has vowed to change the names of city streets associated with slavery, here's a list of those streets throughout the city. 

• 
• 9/26/2021
  

  The Rogues Gallery: The Messy Growth of Modern Policing in Gilded Age New York City

  by John Oller

  John Oller's new book on the rise of the NYPD combines a history of the social dynamics of the booming city, with its extremes of wealth and poverty, and a gallery of colorful rogues – in and out of uniform – whose battles shaped American law enforcement for good and ill. 

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• SOURCE: Governing
  9/21/2021
  

  Redlining Happened, but Not Exactly the Way We've Thought it Did

  New economic research reinforces an argument made by historian Amy Hillier, that federal agencies didn't invent "redlining" but responded to widespread public prejudices that imagined Black residents as threats to neighborhood property value. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/9/2021
  

  Reconstructing an Urban Archive Lost on 9/11

  The archives of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which held important information about the history of the region's politics and infrastructure, was housed in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Agency retirees have sent documents, pictures and artifacts to start rebuilidng the record.

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• SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
  9/9/2021
  

  In Slasher Film ‘Candyman,’ the Horror Is U.S. Housing Policy

  by Brentin Mock

  “Candyman isn't the only ghost in this show,” says Stanford Carpenter, a cultural anthropologist based in Chicago. “The other ghost is Cabrini-Green. In both cases, the thing that makes them scary is that they were made that way by white systemic racism.”

• 
• SOURCE: Click on Detroit
  9/14/2021
  

  Detroit Historical Society Launches Interactive Walking tour of Historic Black Bottom District

  Black Bottom was a predominately Black neighborhood in Detroit that was demolished for redevelopment in the late 1950s, and was replaced with the Lafayette Park district and I-375.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/12/2021
  

  Protest over Road-Widening Through Black Community Echoes Events of 1967

  “This is where we live, and if you don’t think it’s important, we surely do,” said Ron Chase, 70, who is director of the Gum Springs Historical Society. He was a teenager during his first march along Richmond Highway to protest the road’s conditions.

• 
• SOURCE: MSNBC
  9/4/2021
  

  House Hunting While Black: Racism Sabotages the American Dream

  by Keisha N. Blain

  "The current rate of mortgage denials — and the interrelated patterns of housing discrimination and exclusion — is rooted in American history. Discrimination against Black Americans applying for mortgage loans is not new."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/6/2021
  

  Dawn Turner Looks Back on Her ’70s Girlhood, and Those Who Got Left Behind

  "In episodic chapters that read like self-contained short stories woven together into a whole, Turner seeks to understand how three Black girls with very similar aspirations ended up with wildly divergent fates."

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  9/2/2021
  

  The Rise of "UniverCity"

  Universities wield increasing control over their surrounding communities. Historian Davarian Baldwin discusses the impact of that power for good and ill. 

• 
• SOURCE: Vanity Fair
  8/30/2021
  

  Why Hip Hop Conquered the World: The Smithsonian Anthology of Hip Hop and Rap Drops

  The new anthology "tells the story of American history from 1979 to 2013 through the eyes of the young Black Americans who changed it profoundly."