Crossing the Class and Color Lines

Description

"Thousands of low-income African-Americans, mostly women and children, began in 1976 to move out of Chicago's notorious public housing developments to its mostly white, middle-class suburbs.". "They were part of the Gautreaux program, one of the largest court-ordered desegregation efforts in the country's history. Named for the Chicago activist Dorothy Gautreaux, the program formally ended in 1998, but is destined to play a vital role in national housing policy in years to come. In this book, Leonard Rubinowitz and James Rosenbaum tell the story of this unique experiment in racial, social, and economic integration, and examine the factors involved in implementing and sustaining mobility-based programs." "Today, with vouchers replacing public housing, the Gautreaux success story with its strong legacy is the most valuable record of the possibilities for poor people to enhance their life chances by relocating to places where opportunities are greater."--BOOK JACKET.

First Sentence

When Harriet Tubman, the famous "conductor" of the Underground Railroad, escaped from slavery to the North in 1849, she encountered a different reality than she had envisioned: I had crossed de line of which I had so long been dreaming.

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