Selling the Race: Culture, Community, And Black Chicago, 1940-1955

Black Chicagoans were at the center of a national movement in the 1940s and '50s, when African Americans across the country first started to see themselves as part of a single culture. In fact, Adam Green argues, this vibrant period in Windy City life engendered a unique cultural and commercial consciousness, fostering ideas of racial identity that remain influential today.
In his study, Green tells the story of how this unified consciousness was shaped. With this portrayal of black life - complemented by a dozen works of the Chicago photographer Wayne F. Miller - Green ultimately presents African Americans as agents, rather than casualties, of modernity, reenvisioning urban existence in a way that will resonate with anyone interested in race, culture, or the life of cities.

Adam Green is associate professor of history and of social and cultural analysis at New York University.