A New Deal for Bronzeville

Civil rights activism in New Deal and World War II Chicago

During the "Great Migration" of the 1920s and 1930s, southern African Americans flocked to the South Side Chicago community of Bronzeville, the cultural, political, social, and economic hub of African American life in the city, if not the Midwest. The area soon became the epicenter of community activism as workingclass African Americans struggled for equality in housing and employment. In this study, Lionel Kimble Jr. demonstrates how these struggles led to much of the civil rights activism that occurred from 1935 to 1955 in Chicago and shows how this workingclass activism and culture helped to ground the early civil rights movement. Despite the obstacles posed by the Depression, bluecollar African Americans worked with leftist organizations to counter job discrimination and made strong appeals to New Deal allies for access to public housing. With its focus on the role of workingclass African Americans-as opposed to the middleclass leaders who have received the most attention from civil rights historians in the past-A New Deal for Bronzeville makes a significant contribution to the study of civil rights work in the Windy City and enriches our understanding of African American life in midtwentiethcentury Chicago.