America's Johannesburg: Industrialization and Racial Transformation in Birmingham

by Bobby M. Wilson

Overview

No American city symbolizes the black struggle for civil rights more than Birmingham, Alabama. In this critical analysis of why Birmingham became such a focal point, Bobby M. Wilson argues that Alabama's path to industrialism differed significantly from that in the North and Midwest. True to its antebellum roots, no other industrial city in the United States would depend so much upon the exploitation of black labor so early in its development as Birmingham. A persuasive exploration of the links between Alabama's slaveholding order and the subsequent industrialization of the state, Wilson's study demonstrates that arguments based on classical economics fail to take into account the ways in which racial issues influenced the rise of industrial capitalism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780847694808
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	01/19/2000
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.16(w) x 9.22(h) x 0.86(d)

About the Author

Bobby M. Wilson is associate professor of geography and public affairs, University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 1 Introduction: Race and Capitalist Development Chapter 2 2 The Origins of Racism: Discursive and Material Practices Chapter 3 3 The State’s Role in Sustaining Race-Connected Practices Chapter 4 4 Capital Restructuring and the Transformation of Race Chapter 5 5 The Slave Mode of Production Chapter 6 6 A Regime of Accumulation Based on Slave Labor Chapter 7 7 Reconstruction Chapter 8 8 From Slave to Free Black Labor Chapter 9 9 Development of the Birmingham Regime Chapter 10 10 Industrialization with Inexpensive Labor Chapter 11 11 Noncompetitive Labor Segmentation and Laissez-Faire Race Relations Chapter 12 12 Accommodating the Racial Order: The Rise of Institutionalized Racism Chapter 13 13 Scientific Management and the Growth of Black/White Competition Chapter 14 14 The Growth of Corporate Power: The Emergence of Fordism Chapter 15 15 The Great Depression and the Transformation of the Planter Regime Chapter 16 16 The New Deal and Blacks Chapter 17 17 The Southern Shift of Fordism and Entrepreneurial Regimes Chapter 18 18 Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

America's Johannesburg is comprehensive, theoretically-driven, and convincing. America's Johannesburg contributes to the fields of urban studies, geography, and historical sociology by providing a case example of how racial oppression manifests itself in historically and geographically contingent ways. The text will be useful to scholars interested in the micro and macro processes that institutionalized and organized racial inequality in the U.S. southern economy.

Ethnic and Racial Studies

A fresh and original interpretation. The book contributes substantially to the historiography of industrial growth in Alabama. The author provides much insight into the racial dimensions of Birmingham's development. A pioneering work.

W. David Lewis

These two books [America's Johannesburg and Race and Place in Birmingham by Bobby M. Wilson] are extremely important and every urban scholar should read them. Most significant, Wilson has constructed a theoretical and conceptual framework that can be used to study the Black experience across time, as well as at specific moments in time.

Urban Studies

Merits attention since it poses a direct challenge to the ongoing celebration of difference that pervades our field.. .. A creditable job of summarizing the work of recent leftist scholars who critique postmodernist/poststructuralist fashion.

Labor History

Wilson is knowledgeable and insightful.

Choice Reviews

A powerful addition to academic fields as varied as southern studies and Marxian critical theory. Wilson has written a book of uncommon depth. His melding of critical race theory, Marxian critique, and regional analysis is effective and engrossing. Wilson's work is fascinating and well-written.

Economic Geography

This book is destined to make the 'required reading list' on Alabama history.

The Alabama Review

Wilson is knowledgeable and insightful.

CHOICE

Wilson is knowledgeable and insightful.

Choice

This book is destined to make the 'required reading list' on Alabama history.

Alabama Review

Wilson is among a rare cadre of scholars, including Horace Mann Bond, Robin D. G. Kelley, and Horace Huntley and his collaborators, who pioneered studies on the Black freedom struggle in Birmingham and in Alabama at the nexus of macro historical, political, economic, and social transformations across region, nation, and globe.

The Journal of African American History - Tondra L. Loder–Jackson

America’s Johannesburg should be read by anyone concerned about race and place in American cities.

Journal of Urban Affairs - Henry Louis Taylor