Stock image for illustration purposes only - book cover, edition or condition may vary.
Battle for Bed-Stuy: The Long War on Poverty in New York City
Michael Woodsworth
€ 57.82
FREE Delivery in Ireland
Description for Battle for Bed-Stuy: The Long War on Poverty in New York City
Hardcover. In the 1960s Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood was labeled America's largest ghetto. But its brownstones housed a coterie of black professionals intent on bringing order and hope to the community. In telling their story Michael Woodsworth reinterprets the War on Poverty by revealing its roots in local activism and policy experiments. Num Pages: 390 pages. BIC Classification: 1KBB; 1KBBEY; HBLW; KCR. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational. Dimension: 235 x 156. .
A half-century after the launch of the War on Poverty, its complex origins remain obscure. Battle for Bed-Stuy reinterprets President Lyndon Johnson's much-debated crusade from the perspective of its foot soldiers in New York City, showing how 1960s antipoverty programs were rooted in a rich tradition of grassroots activism and policy experiments. Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, with 400,000 mostly black, mostly poor residents, was often labeled America's largest ghetto. But in its elegant brownstones lived a coterie of home-owning professionals intent on stemming disorder and unifying the community. In the 1950s and 1960s, Bed-Stuy's black middle class worked with city officials and, later, Senator Robert Kennedy to tackle youth crime, physical decay, and capital flight. Their policy dialogue inspired several War on Poverty programs, including America's first Community Development Corporation. Such initiatives brought hope amid dark days, reinforced the social safety net, and democratized urban politics. They also empowered women like Elsie Richardson and Shirley Chisholm, community organizers who graduated into leadership positions. Yet, as Michael Woodsworth reveals, these new forms of black political power, though exercised in the name of poor people, often benefited the middle class. Bed-Stuy today, shaped by gentrification and displacement, reflects the paradoxes of midcentury reform.
Product Details
Publisher
Harvard University Press
Format
Hardback
Publication date
2016
Condition
New
Weight
771g
Number of Pages
390
Place of Publication
Cambridge, Mass, United States
ISBN
9780674545069
SKU
V9780674545069
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-31
About Michael Woodsworth
Michael Woodsworth teaches history at Bard High School Early College, Queens.
Reviews for Battle for Bed-Stuy: The Long War on Poverty in New York City
An impressive work that shows how local bureaucracies and energized political activists
in this case innovative African American residents and property owners
made the War on Poverty do what it was intended to do: reflect the interests of local people who knew Bed-Stuy was a community, not a so-called slum.
Kent B. Germany, University of South Carolina [This book] will especially interest readers who want to understand the political economy of the war on poverty. Moreover, though Woodsworth's book focuses on a single American neighborhood, it gives readers a look at the forces that led to failures, and successes, in combating poverty in many American cities during the post-war period. The book is very well written...Battle for Bed-Stuy is an excellent introduction to how the war on poverty played out in the largest ghetto in American's largest city.
(11/01/2016) In this engaging and powerful book, Michael Woodsworth recasts the War on Poverty as the fruit of a long community-based struggle against urban disinvestment and racism. By showing just how much of 1960s urban reform percolated up from the grassroots, Battle for Bed-Stuy offers fresh insight into the relationship between activism and policy and the promises and perils of place-based politics.
Mason B. Williams, author of City of Ambition: FDR, LaGuardia, and the Making of Modern New York This original and well-written account of postwar community activism makes an excellent and provocative case that Bed-Stuy, long overshadowed by Harlem, is a key site for understanding postwar African American history.
Karen Ferguson, author of Top Down: The Ford Foundation, Black Power, and the Reinvention of Racial Liberalism
in this case innovative African American residents and property owners
made the War on Poverty do what it was intended to do: reflect the interests of local people who knew Bed-Stuy was a community, not a so-called slum.
Kent B. Germany, University of South Carolina [This book] will especially interest readers who want to understand the political economy of the war on poverty. Moreover, though Woodsworth's book focuses on a single American neighborhood, it gives readers a look at the forces that led to failures, and successes, in combating poverty in many American cities during the post-war period. The book is very well written...Battle for Bed-Stuy is an excellent introduction to how the war on poverty played out in the largest ghetto in American's largest city.
(11/01/2016) In this engaging and powerful book, Michael Woodsworth recasts the War on Poverty as the fruit of a long community-based struggle against urban disinvestment and racism. By showing just how much of 1960s urban reform percolated up from the grassroots, Battle for Bed-Stuy offers fresh insight into the relationship between activism and policy and the promises and perils of place-based politics.
Mason B. Williams, author of City of Ambition: FDR, LaGuardia, and the Making of Modern New York This original and well-written account of postwar community activism makes an excellent and provocative case that Bed-Stuy, long overshadowed by Harlem, is a key site for understanding postwar African American history.
Karen Ferguson, author of Top Down: The Ford Foundation, Black Power, and the Reinvention of Racial Liberalism