The Politics of Public Housing

Description

"In this collective biography, Rhonda Y. Williams takes us behind, and beyond, politically expedient labels to provide an incisive and intimate portrait of poor black women in urban America. Drawing on dozens of interviews, Williams challenges the notion that low-income housing was a resounding failure that doomed three consecutive generations of postwar Americans to entrenched poverty. Instead, she recovers a history of grassroots activism, of political awakening, and of class mobility, all facilitated by the creation of affordable public housing. The stereotyping of black women, especially mothers, has obscured a complicated and nuanced reality too often warped by the political agendas of both the Left and the Right and has prevented an accurate understanding of the successes and failures of government antipoverty policy."--BOOK JACKET.

First Sentence

In the small isolated farm town of Winfall, North Carolina, on Virginia's border, Clara Perry Gordon's parents, Bolson and the elder Clara Perry, planted cotton.

Subjects

Series Statement

• Transgressing Boundaries

Other Editions

• The Politics of Public Housing: Black Women's Struggles Against Urban InequalityOxford University Press, USA2004-09-09
• Politics of Public HousingOxford University Press, Incorporated2004-01-01