Selling the Race

by Green, Adam; Miller, Wayne

• ISBN13: 9780226306414
• ISBN10: 0226306410
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-11-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

InSelling the Race, Adam Green tells the story of how black Chicagoans were at the center of a national movement in the 1940s and '50s, a time when African Americans across the country first started to see themselves as part of a single culture. Along the way, he offers fascinating reinterpretations of such events as the 1940 American Negro Exposition, the rise of black music and the culture industry that emerged around it, the development of the Associated Negro Press and the founding of Johnson Publishing, and the outcry over the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till. By presenting African Americans as agents, rather than casualties, of modernity, Green ultimately reenvisions urban existence in a way that will resonate with anyone interested in race, culture, or the life of cities. "Green emphasizes the vibrant, positive cultural life of black Chicago. . . . Recommended."Choice "Much like the race sellers and buyers in his book, Green imagines a much wider horizon of innovative ideas that shaped a national race culture."Journal of Illinois History

Author Biography

Adam Green is associate professor of history and of social and cultural analysis at New York University.

Table of Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: In Search of African-American Modernity Imagining the Future

Making the Music

The Ends of Clientage

Selling the Race

A Moment of Simultaneity Conclusion: An African-American Dilemma

Notes

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.