Author: Edgar H Bachrach
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809337525
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
For all the wrong reasons, a national spotlight is shining on Chicago. The city has become known for its violence, police abuse, parent and teacher unrest, population decline, and mounting municipal and pension debt. The underlying problem, contend Ed Bachrach and Austin Berg, is that deliberative democracy is dead in the city. Chicago is home to the last strongman political system in urban America. The mayor holds all the power, and any perceived checks on mayoral control are often proven illusory. Rash decisions have resulted in poor outcomes. The outrageous consequences of unchecked power are evident in government failures in elections, schools, fiscal discipline, corruption, public support for private enterprise, policing, and more. Rather than simply lament the situation, criticize specific leaders, or justify an ideology, Bachrach and Berg compare the decisions about Chicago’s governance and finances with choices made in fourteen other large U.S. cities. The problems that seem unique to Chicago have been encountered elsewhere, and Chicagoans, the authors posit, can learn from the successful solutions other cities have embraced. Chicago government and its citizens must let go of the past to prepare for the future, argue Bachrach and Berg. A future filled with demographic, technological, and economic change requires a government capable of responding and adapting. Reforms can transform the city. The prescriptions for change provided in this book point toward a hopeful future: the New Chicago Way.
The New Chicago Way
Author: Edgar H Bachrach
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809337525
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
For all the wrong reasons, a national spotlight is shining on Chicago. The city has become known for its violence, police abuse, parent and teacher unrest, population decline, and mounting municipal and pension debt. The underlying problem, contend Ed Bachrach and Austin Berg, is that deliberative democracy is dead in the city. Chicago is home to the last strongman political system in urban America. The mayor holds all the power, and any perceived checks on mayoral control are often proven illusory. Rash decisions have resulted in poor outcomes. The outrageous consequences of unchecked power are evident in government failures in elections, schools, fiscal discipline, corruption, public support for private enterprise, policing, and more. Rather than simply lament the situation, criticize specific leaders, or justify an ideology, Bachrach and Berg compare the decisions about Chicago’s governance and finances with choices made in fourteen other large U.S. cities. The problems that seem unique to Chicago have been encountered elsewhere, and Chicagoans, the authors posit, can learn from the successful solutions other cities have embraced. Chicago government and its citizens must let go of the past to prepare for the future, argue Bachrach and Berg. A future filled with demographic, technological, and economic change requires a government capable of responding and adapting. Reforms can transform the city. The prescriptions for change provided in this book point toward a hopeful future: the New Chicago Way.
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809337525
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
For all the wrong reasons, a national spotlight is shining on Chicago. The city has become known for its violence, police abuse, parent and teacher unrest, population decline, and mounting municipal and pension debt. The underlying problem, contend Ed Bachrach and Austin Berg, is that deliberative democracy is dead in the city. Chicago is home to the last strongman political system in urban America. The mayor holds all the power, and any perceived checks on mayoral control are often proven illusory. Rash decisions have resulted in poor outcomes. The outrageous consequences of unchecked power are evident in government failures in elections, schools, fiscal discipline, corruption, public support for private enterprise, policing, and more. Rather than simply lament the situation, criticize specific leaders, or justify an ideology, Bachrach and Berg compare the decisions about Chicago’s governance and finances with choices made in fourteen other large U.S. cities. The problems that seem unique to Chicago have been encountered elsewhere, and Chicagoans, the authors posit, can learn from the successful solutions other cities have embraced. Chicago government and its citizens must let go of the past to prepare for the future, argue Bachrach and Berg. A future filled with demographic, technological, and economic change requires a government capable of responding and adapting. Reforms can transform the city. The prescriptions for change provided in this book point toward a hopeful future: the New Chicago Way.
The Chicago Way
Author: Michael Harvey
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 030726775X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
Private detective Michael Kelly is hired by his former partner to solve an eight-year old rape and battery case long gone cold. But when the partner turns up dead, Kelly enlists a team of his savviest colleagues to connect the dots between the recent murder and the cold case it revived: a television reporter whose relationship with Kelly is not strictly professional; his best friend from childhood, a forensic DNA expert; and an old ally from the DA's office. To close the case, Kelly will have to face the mob, a serial killer, his own double-crossing friends, and the mean streets of the city he loves.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 030726775X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
Private detective Michael Kelly is hired by his former partner to solve an eight-year old rape and battery case long gone cold. But when the partner turns up dead, Kelly enlists a team of his savviest colleagues to connect the dots between the recent murder and the cold case it revived: a television reporter whose relationship with Kelly is not strictly professional; his best friend from childhood, a forensic DNA expert; and an old ally from the DA's office. To close the case, Kelly will have to face the mob, a serial killer, his own double-crossing friends, and the mean streets of the city he loves.
The Insane Chicago Way
Author: John Hagedorn
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022623293X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 309
Book Description
Police, the press, and the public all see the kind of violence that besets the inner city today as irrational and basically about turf, revenge, or drugs. Renowned criminologist and expert on gangs, John Hagedorn here tells a very different and little-known story centered on the dramatic rise and fall of a Mafia-like Latino organization in Chicago called "Spanish Growth & Development." Hagedorn's main informant is 'Sal Martino, ' an Italian Mafioso who became intimately involved with the "In$ane Family," one of the factions of Spanish Growth & Development. Through Sal's first-hand account, Hagedorn shows that the violence was not a result of "disorganized crime" but rather the outcome of SGD's prolonged demise. He gives us for the first time a detailed the history of SGD-the reasons for its creation, the uneasy alliances between gang families, the organization's reliance on bottom-up police corruption, and its ultimate collapse in a pool of blood at a 1999 "peace" conference. Revealing the hidden and riveting stories of Chicago gangs' efforts to build structures ostensibly to reduce violence and to organize crime, of the integration of gang and mafia history, and of the central role of police corruption in Chicago's gangland, "The In$ane Chicago Way" makes a powerful argument for the need to regard corruption as the bedrock of gang power. It dispels the notion that gang violence can be explained solely by ecological, neighborhood-based processes and sheds light on the current gang situation in Chicago by laying bare its history while raising disturbing questions for researchers, policy-makers, and the public.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022623293X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 309
Book Description
Police, the press, and the public all see the kind of violence that besets the inner city today as irrational and basically about turf, revenge, or drugs. Renowned criminologist and expert on gangs, John Hagedorn here tells a very different and little-known story centered on the dramatic rise and fall of a Mafia-like Latino organization in Chicago called "Spanish Growth & Development." Hagedorn's main informant is 'Sal Martino, ' an Italian Mafioso who became intimately involved with the "In$ane Family," one of the factions of Spanish Growth & Development. Through Sal's first-hand account, Hagedorn shows that the violence was not a result of "disorganized crime" but rather the outcome of SGD's prolonged demise. He gives us for the first time a detailed the history of SGD-the reasons for its creation, the uneasy alliances between gang families, the organization's reliance on bottom-up police corruption, and its ultimate collapse in a pool of blood at a 1999 "peace" conference. Revealing the hidden and riveting stories of Chicago gangs' efforts to build structures ostensibly to reduce violence and to organize crime, of the integration of gang and mafia history, and of the central role of police corruption in Chicago's gangland, "The In$ane Chicago Way" makes a powerful argument for the need to regard corruption as the bedrock of gang power. It dispels the notion that gang violence can be explained solely by ecological, neighborhood-based processes and sheds light on the current gang situation in Chicago by laying bare its history while raising disturbing questions for researchers, policy-makers, and the public.
The New Chicago Way
Author: Edgar H Bachrach
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
ISBN: 0809337517
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
For all the wrong reasons, a national spotlight is shining on Chicago. The city has become known for its violence, police abuse, parent and teacher unrest, population decline, and mounting municipal and pension debt. The underlying problem, contend Ed Bachrach and Austin Berg, is that deliberative democracy is dead in the city. Chicago is home to the last strongman political system in urban America. The mayor holds all the power, and any perceived checks on mayoral control are often proven illusory. Rash decisions have resulted in poor outcomes. The outrageous consequences of unchecked power are evident in government failures in elections, schools, fiscal discipline, corruption, public support for private enterprise, policing, and more. Rather than simply lament the situation, criticize specific leaders, or justify an ideology, Bachrach and Berg compare the decisions about Chicago’s governance and finances with choices made in fourteen other large U.S. cities. The problems that seem unique to Chicago have been encountered elsewhere, and Chicagoans, the authors posit, can learn from the successful solutions other cities have embraced. Chicago government and its citizens must let go of the past to prepare for the future, argue Bachrach and Berg. A future filled with demographic, technological, and economic change requires a government capable of responding and adapting. Reforms can transform the city. The prescriptions for change provided in this book point toward a hopeful future: the New Chicago Way.
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
ISBN: 0809337517
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
For all the wrong reasons, a national spotlight is shining on Chicago. The city has become known for its violence, police abuse, parent and teacher unrest, population decline, and mounting municipal and pension debt. The underlying problem, contend Ed Bachrach and Austin Berg, is that deliberative democracy is dead in the city. Chicago is home to the last strongman political system in urban America. The mayor holds all the power, and any perceived checks on mayoral control are often proven illusory. Rash decisions have resulted in poor outcomes. The outrageous consequences of unchecked power are evident in government failures in elections, schools, fiscal discipline, corruption, public support for private enterprise, policing, and more. Rather than simply lament the situation, criticize specific leaders, or justify an ideology, Bachrach and Berg compare the decisions about Chicago’s governance and finances with choices made in fourteen other large U.S. cities. The problems that seem unique to Chicago have been encountered elsewhere, and Chicagoans, the authors posit, can learn from the successful solutions other cities have embraced. Chicago government and its citizens must let go of the past to prepare for the future, argue Bachrach and Berg. A future filled with demographic, technological, and economic change requires a government capable of responding and adapting. Reforms can transform the city. The prescriptions for change provided in this book point toward a hopeful future: the New Chicago Way.
The New Chicago
Author: John Koval
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 1592130887
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382
Book Description
For generations, visitors, journalists, and social scientists alike have asserted that Chicago is the quintessentially American city. Indeed, the introduction to The New Chicago reminds us that "to know America, you must know Chicago." The contributors boldly announce the demise of the city of broad shoulders and the transformation of its physical, social, cultural, and economic institutions into a new Chicago. In this wide-ranging book, twenty scholars, journalists, and activists, relying on data from the 2000 census and many years of direct experience with the city, identify five converging forces in American urbanization which are reshaping this storied metropolis. The twenty-six essays included here analyze Chicago by way of globalization and its impact on the contemporary city; economic restructuring; the evolution of machine-style politics into managerial politics; physical transformations of the central city and its suburbs; and race relations in a multicultural era. In elaborating on the effects of these broad forces, contributors detail the role of eight significant racial, ethnic, and immigrant communities in shaping the character of the new Chicago and present ten case studies of innovative governmental, grassroots, and civic action. Multifaceted and authoritative, The New Chicago offers an important and unique portrait of an emergent and new "Windy City."
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 1592130887
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382
Book Description
For generations, visitors, journalists, and social scientists alike have asserted that Chicago is the quintessentially American city. Indeed, the introduction to The New Chicago reminds us that "to know America, you must know Chicago." The contributors boldly announce the demise of the city of broad shoulders and the transformation of its physical, social, cultural, and economic institutions into a new Chicago. In this wide-ranging book, twenty scholars, journalists, and activists, relying on data from the 2000 census and many years of direct experience with the city, identify five converging forces in American urbanization which are reshaping this storied metropolis. The twenty-six essays included here analyze Chicago by way of globalization and its impact on the contemporary city; economic restructuring; the evolution of machine-style politics into managerial politics; physical transformations of the central city and its suburbs; and race relations in a multicultural era. In elaborating on the effects of these broad forces, contributors detail the role of eight significant racial, ethnic, and immigrant communities in shaping the character of the new Chicago and present ten case studies of innovative governmental, grassroots, and civic action. Multifaceted and authoritative, The New Chicago offers an important and unique portrait of an emergent and new "Windy City."
A Long Way From Chicago
Author: Richard Peck
Publisher: Puffin Books
ISBN: 0141303522
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 178
Book Description
A boy recounts his annual summer trips to rural Illinois with his sister during the Great Depression to visit their larger-than-life grandmother.
Publisher: Puffin Books
ISBN: 0141303522
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 178
Book Description
A boy recounts his annual summer trips to rural Illinois with his sister during the Great Depression to visit their larger-than-life grandmother.
From Boom to Bubble
Author: Rachel Weber
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226826597
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
An unprecedented historical, sociological, and geographic look at how property markets change and fail—and how that affects cities. In From Boom to Bubble, Rachel Weber debunks the idea that booms occur only when cities are growing and innovating. Instead, she argues, even in cities experiencing employment and population decline, developers rush to erect new office towers and apartment buildings when they have financial incentives to do so. Focusing on the main causes of overbuilding during the early 2000s, Weber documents the case of Chicago’s “Millennial Boom,” showing that the Loop’s expansion was a response to global and local pressures to produce new assets. An influx of cheap cash, made available through the use of complex financial instruments, helped transform what started as a boom grounded in modest occupant demand into a speculative bubble, where pricing and supply had only tenuous connections to the market. From Boom to Bubble is an innovative look at how property markets change and fail—and how that affects cities.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226826597
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
An unprecedented historical, sociological, and geographic look at how property markets change and fail—and how that affects cities. In From Boom to Bubble, Rachel Weber debunks the idea that booms occur only when cities are growing and innovating. Instead, she argues, even in cities experiencing employment and population decline, developers rush to erect new office towers and apartment buildings when they have financial incentives to do so. Focusing on the main causes of overbuilding during the early 2000s, Weber documents the case of Chicago’s “Millennial Boom,” showing that the Loop’s expansion was a response to global and local pressures to produce new assets. An influx of cheap cash, made available through the use of complex financial instruments, helped transform what started as a boom grounded in modest occupant demand into a speculative bubble, where pricing and supply had only tenuous connections to the market. From Boom to Bubble is an innovative look at how property markets change and fail—and how that affects cities.
The Lost Book of Adana Moreau
Author: Michael Zapata
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1488055734
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
*Winner of the Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction* A Heartland Booksellers Award Nominee An NPR Best Book of the Year A BookPage Best Book of the Year A Library Journal Best Winter/Spring Debut of 2020 A Most Anticipated Book of 2020 from the Boston Globe and The Millions A Best Book of February 2020 at Salon, The Millions, LitHub and Vol 1. Brooklyn “A stunner—equal parts epic and intimate, thrilling and elegiac.”—Laura Van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel The mesmerizing story of a Latin American science fiction writer and the lives her lost manuscript unites decades later in post-Katrina New Orleans In 1929 in New Orleans, a Dominican immigrant named Adana Moreau writes a science fiction novel. The novel earns rave reviews, and Adana begins a sequel. Then she falls gravely ill. Just before she dies, she destroys the only copy of the manuscript. Decades later in Chicago, Saul Drower is cleaning out his dead grandfather’s home when he discovers a mysterious manuscript written by none other than Adana Moreau. With the help of his friend Javier, Saul tracks down an address for Adana’s son in New Orleans, but as Hurricane Katrina strikes they must head to the storm-ravaged city for answers. What results is a brilliantly layered masterpiece—an ode to home, storytelling and the possibility of parallel worlds.
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1488055734
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
*Winner of the Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction* A Heartland Booksellers Award Nominee An NPR Best Book of the Year A BookPage Best Book of the Year A Library Journal Best Winter/Spring Debut of 2020 A Most Anticipated Book of 2020 from the Boston Globe and The Millions A Best Book of February 2020 at Salon, The Millions, LitHub and Vol 1. Brooklyn “A stunner—equal parts epic and intimate, thrilling and elegiac.”—Laura Van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel The mesmerizing story of a Latin American science fiction writer and the lives her lost manuscript unites decades later in post-Katrina New Orleans In 1929 in New Orleans, a Dominican immigrant named Adana Moreau writes a science fiction novel. The novel earns rave reviews, and Adana begins a sequel. Then she falls gravely ill. Just before she dies, she destroys the only copy of the manuscript. Decades later in Chicago, Saul Drower is cleaning out his dead grandfather’s home when he discovers a mysterious manuscript written by none other than Adana Moreau. With the help of his friend Javier, Saul tracks down an address for Adana’s son in New Orleans, but as Hurricane Katrina strikes they must head to the storm-ravaged city for answers. What results is a brilliantly layered masterpiece—an ode to home, storytelling and the possibility of parallel worlds.
The Chicago Way
Author: Don Herion
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1450081657
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 347
Book Description
Traffic Tickets—What a Pain Every police officer is issued a traffic summons book when he is assigned to a district. The supervisors have what we used to call a quota on tickets issued. When an officer is assigned to the traffic division, he is expected to write at least eight moving violations a shift. But that is all he has to do; he doesn’t handle any crime scenes or domestic disturbances or whatever else comes along. On occasion, he has to handle a traffic accident, but that’s about all. Don’t get me wrong. I hated to write tickets, especially moving violations like red lights, speeding, or no left turn. Parking tickets were also a pain in the ass; all they accomplish is that the poor soul that gets the ticket now hates you. I guess that they are a necessity though, and maybe in some way they help keep drivers from getting too crazy behind the wheel of their car or truck. Personally, I would rather be out in the street locking up bad guys and harassing gang bangers. Some of these traffic guys really like working traffic, giving out their quota of summons, and putting a few drunk drivers in jail before they kill somebody or themselves. People that get stopped by the police for a traffic violation really come up with some original excuses. I remember an elderly lady that we stopped for driving the wrong way on a one-way street. This violation is usually an open-and-shut case. When I asked her for her driver’s license and explained why we had stopped her, she called me a liar and asked why wasn’t I out chasing down dope dealers or communists instead of bothering a woman alone in a car trying to get home. 20 DON HERION No matter what I said to her, she had a look of hate in her eyes; and if she had a gun, she would have shot me dead. When I began opening the summons book to write her the ticket, she pulled an acting job on me that was a beauty. The first thing she did was to roll her eyes up in her head and then grab her heart like she was going to have a heart attack right there. Well, needless to say, she hit the right button and her act worked. Even though I knew she was probably faking it, I didn’t want to take a chance of her dropping dead in front of me. I asked her if she needed an ambulance or wanted to be taken to the nearest hospital. She said that she only lived two blocks from there and that her heart pills were in her bathroom. She explained that if she got them, she was sure to be OK. Well, at this point, I was pretty aggravated and couldn’t imagine myself giving this wacky broad mouth-to-mouth resuscitation if she was telling the truth. Of course, I told her that we would be glad to drive her home if she couldn’t drive. She said no, that she felt better, and she thought that she could drive home OK. I said, “OK, lady, under the circumstances, I won’t give you a ticket this time but that you had better be more alert in the future.” I just knew that I made this old broad’s day when she thought she really bullshitted me about the heart attack. To top it off, when she was driving away, she winked at me and said, “Thanks, Officer, have a nice day.” The best part of all is when I got back in the squad car, my partner Bob was just shaking his head and laughing. It seems that he had stopped this old witch in the past for doing the same thing and she pulled the heart attack routine on him too. He admitted that he didn’t want to take a chance and have the old broad drop dead on him either and gave her a pass. The thing that got him was when her eyes went up in her head and all he could see was the whites of her eyes. Later on, we talked to a few of the other guys that were working in that part of the district, and they all had stopped her for doing the same thing, driving the wrong way on a one-way street. They all witnessed her heart attack routine, and none of them gave her a ticket. I thought, your day will come, you old bitty. Not only will I give her a ticket,
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1450081657
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 347
Book Description
Traffic Tickets—What a Pain Every police officer is issued a traffic summons book when he is assigned to a district. The supervisors have what we used to call a quota on tickets issued. When an officer is assigned to the traffic division, he is expected to write at least eight moving violations a shift. But that is all he has to do; he doesn’t handle any crime scenes or domestic disturbances or whatever else comes along. On occasion, he has to handle a traffic accident, but that’s about all. Don’t get me wrong. I hated to write tickets, especially moving violations like red lights, speeding, or no left turn. Parking tickets were also a pain in the ass; all they accomplish is that the poor soul that gets the ticket now hates you. I guess that they are a necessity though, and maybe in some way they help keep drivers from getting too crazy behind the wheel of their car or truck. Personally, I would rather be out in the street locking up bad guys and harassing gang bangers. Some of these traffic guys really like working traffic, giving out their quota of summons, and putting a few drunk drivers in jail before they kill somebody or themselves. People that get stopped by the police for a traffic violation really come up with some original excuses. I remember an elderly lady that we stopped for driving the wrong way on a one-way street. This violation is usually an open-and-shut case. When I asked her for her driver’s license and explained why we had stopped her, she called me a liar and asked why wasn’t I out chasing down dope dealers or communists instead of bothering a woman alone in a car trying to get home. 20 DON HERION No matter what I said to her, she had a look of hate in her eyes; and if she had a gun, she would have shot me dead. When I began opening the summons book to write her the ticket, she pulled an acting job on me that was a beauty. The first thing she did was to roll her eyes up in her head and then grab her heart like she was going to have a heart attack right there. Well, needless to say, she hit the right button and her act worked. Even though I knew she was probably faking it, I didn’t want to take a chance of her dropping dead in front of me. I asked her if she needed an ambulance or wanted to be taken to the nearest hospital. She said that she only lived two blocks from there and that her heart pills were in her bathroom. She explained that if she got them, she was sure to be OK. Well, at this point, I was pretty aggravated and couldn’t imagine myself giving this wacky broad mouth-to-mouth resuscitation if she was telling the truth. Of course, I told her that we would be glad to drive her home if she couldn’t drive. She said no, that she felt better, and she thought that she could drive home OK. I said, “OK, lady, under the circumstances, I won’t give you a ticket this time but that you had better be more alert in the future.” I just knew that I made this old broad’s day when she thought she really bullshitted me about the heart attack. To top it off, when she was driving away, she winked at me and said, “Thanks, Officer, have a nice day.” The best part of all is when I got back in the squad car, my partner Bob was just shaking his head and laughing. It seems that he had stopped this old witch in the past for doing the same thing and she pulled the heart attack routine on him too. He admitted that he didn’t want to take a chance and have the old broad drop dead on him either and gave her a pass. The thing that got him was when her eyes went up in her head and all he could see was the whites of her eyes. Later on, we talked to a few of the other guys that were working in that part of the district, and they all had stopped her for doing the same thing, driving the wrong way on a one-way street. They all witnessed her heart attack routine, and none of them gave her a ticket. I thought, your day will come, you old bitty. Not only will I give her a ticket,
The Defender
Author: Ethan Michaeli
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547560877
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 884
Book Description
This “extraordinary history” of the influential black newspaper is “deeply researched, elegantly written [and] a towering achievement” (Brent Staples, New York Times Book Review). In 1905, Robert S. Abbott started printing The Chicago Defender, a newspaper dedicated to condemning Jim Crow and encouraging African Americans living in the South to join the Great Migration. Smuggling hundreds of thousands of copies into the most isolated communities in the segregated South, Abbott gave voice to the voiceless, galvanized the electoral power of black America, and became one of the first black millionaires in the process. His successor wielded the newspaper’s clout to elect mayors and presidents, including Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy, who would have lost in 1960 if not for The Defender’s support. Drawing on dozens of interviews and extensive archival research, Ethan Michaeli constructs a revelatory narrative of journalism and race in America, bringing to life the reporters who braved lynch mobs and policemen’s clubs to do their jobs, from the age of Teddy Roosevelt to the age of Barack Obama. “[This] epic, meticulously detailed account not only reminds its readers that newspapers matter, but so do black lives, past and present.” —USA Today
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547560877
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 884
Book Description
This “extraordinary history” of the influential black newspaper is “deeply researched, elegantly written [and] a towering achievement” (Brent Staples, New York Times Book Review). In 1905, Robert S. Abbott started printing The Chicago Defender, a newspaper dedicated to condemning Jim Crow and encouraging African Americans living in the South to join the Great Migration. Smuggling hundreds of thousands of copies into the most isolated communities in the segregated South, Abbott gave voice to the voiceless, galvanized the electoral power of black America, and became one of the first black millionaires in the process. His successor wielded the newspaper’s clout to elect mayors and presidents, including Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy, who would have lost in 1960 if not for The Defender’s support. Drawing on dozens of interviews and extensive archival research, Ethan Michaeli constructs a revelatory narrative of journalism and race in America, bringing to life the reporters who braved lynch mobs and policemen’s clubs to do their jobs, from the age of Teddy Roosevelt to the age of Barack Obama. “[This] epic, meticulously detailed account not only reminds its readers that newspapers matter, but so do black lives, past and present.” —USA Today