Community and Resistance in the Gateway City: Black National Consciousness, Working -Class Formation, and Social Movements in St. Louis, Missouri, 1941--1964

"Using St. Louis, Missouri as a case study, this dissertation argues that Black working-class formation and urban community-building propelled the major Black social movements between World War II and the early 1960s. The agendas emerging from these movements represented the racial and class interests of Black working people, not only in demands for political participation in U.S. society, but also for a more far-reaching social citizenship. However, several long-term developments derailed these mass movements rooted in the Black working class, contributing to an overall ebb in contemporary Black insurgency. St. Louis, a border city, is an important setting because it comprised a unique social, economic and political crossroads between the East and West coasts, and the North and the South. Located along the Mississippi River, the ""Gateway City"" combined the industrial base and unionized workforce of the Midwest, and the commercial might of a southern riverfront metropolis. St. Louis also reflected the de facto racism of the North, and the formalized ""Jim Crow"" of the South. This study integrates the fields of African American urban history, African American labor and working-class history, and the history of the modern Black Freedom Movement. This project also extends a rapidly growing body of historical literature on African Americans in St. Louis."

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Lang, Clarence E.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Juliet E.K.Walker

• History, United States

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3130964

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/84656