Whose Harlem is this, anyway? : community politics and grassroots activism during the new Negro era /

During the first two decades of the 20th century, African Americans moved to Harlem in upper Manhattan in a massive migration. Even after they constituted the largest percentage of the local population, African Americans faced and battled the same perpetual discrimination they endured in their previous neighborhoods. Historian King (College of Wooster) demonstrates in his excellent study that during the New Negro era, especially between WW I and the beginning of the Great Depression, blacks in Harlem vigorously fought for their community rights against the tremendous odds of white discrimination. As King convincingly argues, activism in Harlem based "around local issues challenged various manifestations of racial injustice and raised the racial and political consciousness of the black community." Through such issues as housing and police brutality, King makes a strong case that the New Negro era in Harlem was the springboard for a more precise period of protest and a stronger black political culture in the following decades. A must for those interested in urban civil rights and race in the 20th-century US. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. --Raymond Douglas Screws, Arkansas National Guard Museum