Black Spokane: The Civil Rights Struggle in the Inland Northwest (Race and Culture in the American West, 8) - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

<div>In 1981, decades before mainstream America elected Barack Obama, James Chase became the first African American mayor of Spokane, Washington, with the overwhelming support of a majority-white electorate. Chase&#8217;s win failed to capture the attention of historians&#8212;as had the century-long evolution of the black community in Spokane. In <i>Black Spokane: The Civil Rights Struggle in the Inland Northwest</i>, Dwayne A. Mack corrects this oversight&#8212;and recovers a crucial chapter in the history of race relations and civil rights in America.<br><br>As early as the 1880s, Spokane was a destination for black settlers escaping the racial oppression in the South&#8212;settlers who over the following decades built an infrastructure of churches, businesses, and social organizations to serve the black community. Drawing on oral histories, interviews, newspapers, and a rich array of other primary sources, Mack sets the stage for the years following World War II in the Inland Northwest, when an influx of black veterans would bring about a new era of racial issues. His book traces the earliest challenges faced by the NAACP and a small but sympathetic white population as Spokane became a significant part of the national civil rights struggle. International superstars such as Louis &#8220;Satchmo&#8221; Armstrong and Hazel Scott figure in this story, along with charismatic local preachers, entrepreneurs, and lawyers who stepped forward as civic leaders.&#160;<br><br>These individuals&#8217; contributions, and the black community&#8217;s encounters with racism, offer a view of the complexity of race relations in a city and a region not recognized historically as centers of racial strife. But in matters of race&#8212;from the first migration of black settlers to Spokane, through the politics of the Cold War and the civil rights movement, to the successes of the 1970s and &#8217;80s&#8212;Mack shows that Spokane has a story to tell, one that this book at long last incorporates into the larger history of twentieth-century America.</div>

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