Black Gotham

African Americans in New York City, 1900–2000

Bibliographic Data

ID18980435
AuthorsRobert Adams (0009-0006-5817-1154, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, corresponding author), Robert L Adams
Year2005
Volume12
Issue3
Pages363-384
Publication date2005-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIdentities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1070-289X • E-ISSN: 1547-3384
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10702890500203611
OpenAlexW2094180973
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited27

For almost four centuries, African Americans in New York City have engaged in ethnic “dream-work,” shaping the city and being shaped by the city in return. The longstanding practice of racism forced a heterogeneous community of Blacks—originating in different parts of the country and the world, speaking many languages, and comprised of different economic classes— to coalesce as a community in order to challenge their subjugation. This article explores the issues, conditions, and experiences that frame the coalescence of the African American community in New York City during the twentieth century, highlighting how racial identities have been produced in the city. In the first part of this article, I reflect on the presence of Blacks in New York City to illuminate some of the common themes that have emerged from the African American experience in Gotham. The second section is a historical exploration of the black experience in New York City, illuminating the conditions, expectations, events, and spaces that have shaped its formation. The research for this article was conducted while the author was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Urban Research (CUNY Graduate Center) on the “Immigrant Second Generation in Metropolitan New York” project. The Russell Sage Foundation, The Ford Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD), and the UJA-Federation provided funding for the “Second Generation” project. I greatly appreciate the support of John Mollenkopf, Phillip Kasinitz, and Mary Waters. Kristin Norget, Michelle McKenzie, and Jennifer Ramirez provided extensive editorial comments. Key Words: New York CityAfrican Americansraceimmigrationurban history Notes The research for this article was conducted while the author was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Urban Research (CUNY Graduate Center) on the “Immigrant Second Generation in Metropolitan New York” project. The Russell Sage Foundation, The Ford Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD), and the UJA-Federation provided funding for the “Second Generation” project. I greatly appreciate the support of John Mollenkopf, Phillip Kasinitz, and Mary Waters. Kristin Norget, Michelle McKenzie, and Jennifer Ramirez provided extensive editorial comments. 1. I am well aware that my perspective puts me at odds with much of the immigration literature in sociology. Immigration scholars emphasize that current West Indian migrants are reluctant to identify with the African American identifier. Immigration scholars suggest that the West Indian reluctance demonstrates the existence of a racial distance between native born and foreign-born Blacks (e.g., CitationKasinitz 1992; CitationWaters 1999). This line of reasoning ignores what the shift in identity terms really signifies. The term was neither essential (“real”) nor nativist (“American born only”), but marked a new opening in the ongoing African American struggle for self definition while claiming equal political and economic rights: It is precisely around the symbolic displacements of the “proper name” that we can see the historical formation of new modes of democratic agency. In the United States, this is seen most clearly in the recoding of the proper name—Negro, Colored, Black, Afro American, and, more recently, African American—each of which reinflect the conotational value of a given vocabulary in renaming a collective subjectivity in each historical period (CitationMercer 1994: 294). As a nonexclusive term, it allows for multipositional subject positions. For example, Colin Powell simultaneously identifies himself as West Indian, Black, and African American in his best-selling memoir, My American Journey (1995). Interestingly, the wide-scale adoption of the African American identity category in the 1980s brings black identity politics back to the central concerns and issues that occupied early African American New Yorkers. Craig Wilder argues “that by the end of the [American] Revolution, black New Yorkers were publicly describing themselves and their institutions as African” (2001: 73). This term allowed African Americans to identify with fellow Blacks in Africa and across the diasporasharing similar conditions. William Hamilton, addressing the self-help organization that he founded, the New York African Society for Mutual Relief, in 1809, illustrates his belief in the elasticity of the African designation in particular and black identity in general: “African I term it because ... it makes no difference whether the man is born in Africa, Asia, Europe, or America, so long as he is proginized from African parents” (quoted in CitationWilder 2001: 78). African American New Yorkers, originating in Africa, the Caribbean, and North America, believed that the African category unified the heterogeneous community. This unity was a necessary prerequisite for collectively challenging African American marginalization in the city. 2. Many scholars of the African Diaspora consider the establishment of Haiti as the first expression of black modernity: In James’ view, the desire for emancipation was expressed in the form of the struggle to become modern states ... A state that would try to restructure relations shaped by the plantation or colonialism and produce a new self-consciousness... [characterized by] the spirit of intellectual dissidence, imaginative restlessness, and dialectical struggle (CitationDash 1997: 16). Haiti was the first to embrace the future by establishing the black nation-state, instead of trying to recover an ancestral past or homeland. Therefore, the country served as the inspiration for and center of black modernity for more than 100 years. McMahon, Thomas, Larian Angelo, Timothy Ross, and Regina Ryan 1998. New York City's Middle Class: The Need for a New Urban Agenda. Report prepared for the New York City Council, New York

Ethnic group · Immigration · Political science · Racism · Sociology · American and British Literature Analysis · Anthropology · Gender Studies · History · Law · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Race, History, and American Society

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub