Class, Historicity and the Study of African American Politics: A Roundtable Discussion on Preston Smith's Racial Democracy and the Black Metropolis: Housing Policy in Postwar Chicago

Abstract

Roundtable Participants: Cedric Johnson, Associate Professor, African American Studies and Political Science, University of Illinois at Chicago. Michelle Boyd, Associate Professor & Associate Director, Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago. Toure F. Reed, Associate Professor of History, Illinois State University. Adolph Reed, Jr., Professor, Political Science, University of Pennsylvania Preston H. Smith II, Associate Professor, Political Science, Mt. Holyoke College. This roundtable assembles leading scholars of African American politics, urban politics and Chicago to critically assess Preston H.Smith’s recent, path-breaking book, Racial Democracy and the Black Metropolis: Housing Policy in Postwar Chicago. Chicago has long served as a principal laboratory and case for analysis of American inequality and African American politics, but what distinguishes Smith’s latest work is his historically grounded, left critical exploration of the tensions between social democracy “which argued that citizens should have access to decent housing regardless of their ability to pay for it” and racial democracy which “meant equal access to housing aid and housing markets for racial minorities” within postwar black politics. Although black communists, labor activists and social reformers touted social democracy during the Depression era, after World War II, black civic elites distanced themselves from social democracy and embraced racial liberalism. Smith examines housing debates in Chicago that go beyond black and white politics, and he shows how class and factional conflicts among African Americans actually helped to reproduce persistent segregation along economic lines. Smith outlines the ideological framework that black civic leaders in Chicago used to formulate housing policy, and reveals a surprising picture of leaders who singled out racial segregation as the source of African Americans’ inadequate housing rather than attacking class inequalities. What are generally presented as black positions on housing policy in Chicago, Smith makes clear, belonged to the black elite and did not necessarily reflect black working-class participation or interests.As such, his work sharply contrasts other accounts of black politics after the Second World War which assume a black politics as a consistent, unified phenomenon, a interpretative tendency often reflected in phrases like, “The African American community,” “The black position,”and “the black freedom struggle.” This book details how black civic leaders fought racial discrimination in ways that promoted - or at least did not sacrifice - their class interests in housing and real estate struggles. And, as Smith demonstrates, their accommodation of the real estate practices and government policy of the time has had a lasting effect: it contributed to a legacy of class segregation in the housing market in Chicago and major metropolitan areas across the country that is still felt today. Roundtable participants will offer commentary on the methodological and interpretative merits of Racial Democracy and the Black Metropolis and discuss how this work models the kind of left critical analysis that might enhance our understanding of African American politics.