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Philadelphia has long been a crucial site for the development of
Black politics across the nation. If There Is No Struggle There Is
No Progress provides an in-depth historical analysis-from the days
of the Great Migration to the present-of the people and movements
that made the city a center of political activism. The editor and
contributors show how Black activists have long protested against
police abuse, pushed for education reform, challenged job and
housing discrimination, and put presidents in the White House. If
There Is No Struggle There Is No Progress emphasizes the strength
of political strategies such as the "Don't Buy Where You Can't
Work" movement and the Double V campaign. It demonstrates how Black
activism helped shift Philadelphia from the Republican machine to
Democratic leaders in the 1950s and highlights the election of
politicians like Robert N. C. Nix, Sr., the first African American
representative from Philadelphia. In addition, it focuses on
grassroots movements and the intersection of race, gender, class,
and politics in the 1960s, and shows how African Americans from the
1970s to the present challenged Mayor Frank Rizzo and helped elect
Mayors Wilson Goode, John Street, and Michael Nutter. If There Is
No Struggle There Is No Progress cogently makes the case that Black
activism has long been a powerful force in Philadelphia politics.
Philadelphia has long been a crucial site for the development of
Black politics across the nation. If There Is No Struggle There Is
No Progress provides an in-depth historical analysis-from the days
of the Great Migration to the present-of the people and movements
that made the city a center of political activism. The editor and
contributors show how Black activists have long protested against
police abuse, pushed for education reform, challenged job and
housing discrimination, and put presidents in the White House. If
There Is No Struggle There Is No Progress emphasizes the strength
of political strategies such as the "Don't Buy Where You Can't
Work" movement and the Double V campaign. It demonstrates how Black
activism helped shift Philadelphia from the Republican machine to
Democratic leaders in the 1950s and highlights the election of
politicians like Robert N. C. Nix, Sr., the first African American
representative from Philadelphia. In addition, it focuses on
grassroots movements and the intersection of race, gender, class,
and politics in the 1960s, and shows how African Americans from the
1970s to the present challenged Mayor Frank Rizzo and helped elect
Mayors Wilson Goode, John Street, and Michael Nutter. If There Is
No Struggle There Is No Progress cogently makes the case that Black
activism has long been a powerful force in Philadelphia politics.
Philadelphia exploded in violence in 1910. The general strike that
year was a notable point, but not a unique one, in a
generations-long history of conflict between the workers and
management at one of the nation's largest privately owned transit
systems. In Running the Rails, James Wolfinger uses the history of
Philadelphia's sprawling public transportation system to explore
how labor relations shifted from the 1880s to the 1960s. As transit
workers adapted to fast-paced technological innovation to keep the
city's people and commerce on the move, management sought to limit
its employees' rights. Raw violence, welfare capitalism,
race-baiting, and smear campaigns against unions were among the
strategies managers used to control the company's labor force and
enhance corporate profits, often at the expense of the workers' and
the city's well-being. Public service workers and their unions come
under frequent attack for being a "special interest" or a hindrance
to the smooth functioning of society. This book offers readers a
different, historically grounded way of thinking about the people
who keep their cities running. Working in public transit is a
difficult job now, as it was a century ago. The benefits and decent
wages Philadelphia public transit workers secured-advances that
were hard-won and well deserved-came as a result of fighting for
decades against their exploitation. Given capital's great power in
American society and management's enduring quest to control its
workforce, it is remarkable to see how much Philadelphia's transit
workers achieved.
In a detailed study of life and politics in Philadelphia between
the 1930s and the 1950s, James Wolfinger demonstrates how racial
tensions in working-class neighborhoods and job sites shaped the
contours of mid-twentieth-century liberal and conservative
politics. As racial divisions fractured the working class, he
argues, Republican leaders exploited these racial fissures to
reposition their party as the champion of ordinary white citizens
besieged by black demands and overwhelmed by liberal government
orders. By analyzing Philadelphia's workplaces and neighborhoods,
Wolfinger shows the ways in which politics played out on the
personal level. People's experiences in their jobs and homes, he
argues, fundamentally shaped how they thought about the crucial
political issues of the day, including the New Deal and its
relationship to the American people, the meaning of World War II in
a country with an imperfect democracy, and the growth of the
suburbs in the 1950s. As Wolfinger demonstrates, internal fractures
in New Deal liberalism, the roots of modern conservatism, and the
politics of race were all deeply intertwined. Their interplay
highlights how the Republican Party reinvented itself in the
mid-twentieth century by using race-based politics to destroy the
Democrats' fledgling multiracial alliance while simultaneously
building a coalition of its own.
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