Race Work

by Whitaker, Matthew C.

• ISBN13: 9780803260276
• ISBN10: 080326027X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-09-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

Race Work tells the story of Lincoln and Eleanor Ragsdale, two of the most influential black activists of the post-World War II American West, and in so doing, supplies a missing chapter in the history of the civil rights movement, American race relations, African Americans, and the American West.Matthew C. Whitaker explores the Ragsdales' family history and how their familial traditions of entrepreneurship, professionalism, activism, and "race work" helped form their activist identity and placed them in a position to help desegregate Phoenix. His work, the first sustained account of white supremacy and black resistance in Phoenix, also uses the lives of the Ragsdales to examine themes of domination, resistance, interracial coalition building, race, gender, and place against the backdrop of the civil rights and post-civil rights eras. An absorbing biography, Race Work reveals the lives of the Ragsdales as powerful symbols of black leadership during this critical period in American history.

Author Biography

Matthew C. Whitaker is an associate professor of history at Arizona State University. He is also an affiliate faculty member in African and African American studies and the School of Justice and Social Inquiry at ASU.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. viii
List of Tables	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction: The Quest for Racial Equality in Phoenix	p. 1
Power Concedes Nothing without Demand
The Black Professional Tradition	p. 25
Tuskegee, World War II, and the New Black Activism	p. 63
Mobilization, Agitation, and Protest	p. 89
Creative and Persistent
Resistance and Interracial Dissent	p. 133
The Quickening	p. 173
Black and Chicano Leadership and the Struggle for Access and Opportunity	p. 199
Moving Forward Counterclockwise
The Struggle for Racial Equality in Phoenix, 1980-2000	p. 225
Conclusion: Racial Uplift in Phoenix	p. 267
African American Population in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area and Selected Suburbs, 2000	p. 285
Regional Racial Distribution in Selected Arizona Cities, 2000	p. 286
Selected American Western Cities with Black Populations Exceeding Fifty Thousand as of 2000	p. 287
Ragsdale Businesses and Financial Enterprises	p. 288
Professional Organizations and Boards for which Lincoln Ragsdale Served	p. 289
Professional Organizations and Boards for which Eleanor Ragsdale Served	p. 290
Lincoln Ragsdale's Honors and Distinctions	p. 291
Notes	p. 293
Bibliography	p. 341
Index	p. 369
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