" civil disturbances
"long hot summers
A01=Ashley Howard
Author_Ashley Howard
Avondale (Cincinnati)
Black feminity
Black Freedom Movement in the Midwest
Black masculinity
Black Midwest
Black nationalism
Black Power
Black student activism
Category=JBSF
Category=JBSL
Category=JBSL1
Category=NHK
Category=WQH
Civil rights in Cincinnati
Civil rights in Milwaukee
Civil rights in Omaha
cognitive liberation
deindustrialization
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
gender in the Black Freedom Movement
Heartland
Inner Core (Milwaukee)
intra-racial class conflict
Kerner Commission
Mayor Henry Maier
Mayor Walton Bachrach
Midwest
National Guard
Near North Side (Omaha)
police brutality
political violence
protest against police brutality
revolts
riots
unrest
urban politics
Urban rebellions in Cincinnati
Urban rebellions in Milwaukee
Urban rebellions in Omaha
white vigilantism
working-class politics
Product details
- ISBN 9781469684864
- Dimensions: 155 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 17 Jun 2025
- Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
In the nation's so-called heartland, racism is sometimes subtler than in other parts of the country but just as insidious. When Black communities across America went up in flames in the 1960s, Midwest cities, where racial inequity was endemic, were among those most likely to burn. Midwest Unrest explores those rebellions, paying particular attention to the ways that region, race, class, and gender all played critical and often overlapping roles in shaping Black people's resistance to racialized oppression.
Focusing on the uprisings in three midsize Midwestern cities—Cincinnati, Ohio; Omaha, Nebraska; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin—Ashley Howard argues that urban rebellions were a working-class response to the failure of traditional civil rights activism and growing fissures between the Black working and middle classes. Utilizing arrest records, Kerner Commission documents, and author-conducted oral history interviews, Howard registers the significant impact the rebellions had in transforming the consciousness of African Americans and in altering the relationship between Black urban communities and the state. Specifically, multiple parties, including municipal governments, city residents, and most importantly rebels, wielded urban revolt as a political tool to achieve their own objectives. Revealing a new dimension of the Black Freedom Movement, Howard moves the understanding of these disturbances from aberrant acts of violence to historically contingent acts of resistance, highlighting the coeval nature between organized protests and violent outbursts.
Focusing on the uprisings in three midsize Midwestern cities—Cincinnati, Ohio; Omaha, Nebraska; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin—Ashley Howard argues that urban rebellions were a working-class response to the failure of traditional civil rights activism and growing fissures between the Black working and middle classes. Utilizing arrest records, Kerner Commission documents, and author-conducted oral history interviews, Howard registers the significant impact the rebellions had in transforming the consciousness of African Americans and in altering the relationship between Black urban communities and the state. Specifically, multiple parties, including municipal governments, city residents, and most importantly rebels, wielded urban revolt as a political tool to achieve their own objectives. Revealing a new dimension of the Black Freedom Movement, Howard moves the understanding of these disturbances from aberrant acts of violence to historically contingent acts of resistance, highlighting the coeval nature between organized protests and violent outbursts.
Ashley Howard is assistant professor of history and African American studies at the University of Iowa.
