New Orleans After the Promises: Poverty, Citizenship, And the Search for the Great Society

by Germany, Kent B.

• ISBN13: 9780820329000
• ISBN10: 0820329002
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-02-01
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr

Summary

In the 1960s and 1970s, New Orleans experienced one of the greatest transformations in its history. Its people replaced Jim Crow, fought a War on Poverty, and emerged with glittering skyscrapers, professional football, and a building so large it had to be called the Superdome.New Orleans after the Promiseslooks back at that era to explore how a few thousand locals tried to bring the Great Society to Dixie. With faith in God and American progress, they believed that they could conquer poverty, confront racism, establish civic order, and expand the economy. At a time when liberalism seemed to be on the wane nationally, black and white citizens in New Orleans cautiously partnered with each other and with the federal government to expand liberalism in the South.As Kent Germany examines how the civil rights, antipoverty, and therapeutic initiatives of the Great Society dovetailed with the struggles of black New Orleanians for full citizenship, he defines an emerging public/private governing apparatus that he calls the "Soft State": a delicate arrangement involving constituencies as varied as old-money civic leaders and Black Power proponents who came together to sort out the meanings of such new federal programs as Community Action, Head Start, and Model Cities. While those diverse groups struggled--violently on occasion--to influence the process of racial inclusion and the direction of economic growth, they dramatically transformed public life in one of America's oldest cities. While many wonder now what kind of city will emerge after Katrina,New Orleans after the Promisesoffers a detailed portrait of the complex city that developed after its last epic reconstruction.

Author Biography

Kent B. Germany, a native of Louisiana and former resident of New Orleans, is Assistant Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of South Carolina. Previously he was Deputy Director of the Presidential Recordings Program and director of the LBJ Project at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. He is co-host of "For The Record," a PBS program on politics and history, and is coeditor of two books about Lyndon Johnson and the 1960s: The Kennedy Assassination and the Transfer of Power and Toward the Great Society.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction: Something New for the South?	p. 1
A War on Poverty, Segregation, and Alienation, 1964-1974	p. 19
A European-African-Caribbean-American-Southern City	p. 21
Establishing the Early War on Poverty	p. 38
Building Community Action	p. 59
Challenging the Establishment and the Color Line	p. 83
Making Better and Happier Citizens	p. 104
Defusing the Southern Powder Keg	p. 126
Making Workers and Jobs	p. 151
Making Groceries	p. 165
Making a Model New Orleans	p. 180
Black Power and Dixie's Democratic Moment, 1968-1974	p. 209
The Thugs United and the Politics of Manhood	p. 211
Women, Welfare, and Political Mobilization	p. 224
Acronyms, Liberalism, and Electoral Politics, 1969-1971	p. 246
Panthers, Snipers, and the Limits of Liberalism	p. 271
Conclusion: Prelude to Katrina	p. 296
Appendixes	p. 315
Notes	p. 335
Bibliography	p. 401
Index	p. 431
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