The South Side: The Racial Transformation of an American Neighborhood

by Louis Rosen

Overview

The South Side is a quietly powerful story of how a white, middle-class, and largely Jewish neighborhood, built from prairie on Chicago’s far South Side in the optimistic years after World War II, rapidly and dramatically changed to a middle-class black community in the 1960s. It is a tale of two communities that collided almost by accident at a moment in America’s history when race relations were starting to explode, and the profound impact this wrenching collision had on the lives of families and individuals on both sides of the event; a tale of how dreams were both realized and shattered in the confrontation between moral courage, spiritual ethics, and personal fears. The story is told in memoir and oral narrative by fifteen composite characters—two generations of former and current residents of the community, both Jewish and African American. Louis Rosen has made nothing up: the memories, thoughts, and feelings of the characters reflect exactly what was spoken during his extensive interviews. The names are fictional, but The South Side is essentially a work of nonfiction. It speaks to universal concerns: what it is like to grow up as part of a group that is outside the mainstream of American life; why the search for home is so difficult in late-twentieth-century America. The South Side is a story without obvious heroes or villains. It transcends the boundaries of specific individuals, place, and time to offer a vivid description of a struggle that is still very much a part of American life, and one that is likely to be with us for some time to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781461730279
Publisher:	Dee, Ivan R. Publisher
Publication date:	08/17/1999
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	189
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Louis Rosen composes and writes for the theatre. His work includes Book of the Night and A Child’s Garden. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

What People are Saying About This

Derrick Bell

Sensitive, enlightening, and highly readable.

Philip Friedman

A wonderful book...full of insight, verve and humanity.

Emily Mann

Deeply moving...an important contribution to the study of race in this country.

Editorial Reviews

In the 1960s, Chicago's South Side changed from a predominantly Jewish to a mainly black neighborhood. Having grown up there, Rosen experienced this white flight and decided to conduct a series of interviews with former neighbors and friends, asking them how fear had spread so rapidly and why liberal people appeared to have become bigots. The author is a composer for the theater, and he draws on this career to format the interviews into a type of play, featuring 15 composite characters from both the black and the Jewish communities. Especially interesting are stories of how the first synagogue got started and why it faltered during the racial changes in the neighborhood and had to be relocated. The Jewish residents passionately describe their feelings of betrayal and hurt from the synagogue's loss. Also fascinating are reactions from the black community, past and present, who felt a mixture of confusion, rejection and anger when their white neighbors claimed to be moving because they wanted "better schools." After these admissions, however, the book suffers from repetition, and the 15 characters are not distinguished enough from one another. Each time Rosen identifies a factor for the change, such as whites' suspicion of increased crime from black neighbors, each character comments on the issue without always adding something meaningful to the debate. Although the author's intentions are noble, his method is questionable and, ultimately, unsatisfying. (July)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Rosen examines the phenomenon of white flight in a small neighborhood on the south side of Chicago in the late 1960s. Currently a writer for the musical theater, he was in high school when these wrenching changes took place. In an attempt to understand what happened, he interviewed his former neighbors 30 years later. The result is a composite of narratives detailing the fear, sense of betrayal, and confusion that took place when middle-class blacks moved into a white, middle-class, largely Jewish neighborhood. The oral-history format lends a sense of action and movement to the material and conveys the emotional aspects of this situation. However, presenting personal accounts in a drama format limits the book's usefulness as a research tool. This would complement other, more substantive sources such as Michael Lerner's Jews & Blacks: A Dialogue on Race, Religion, and Culture in America (Dutton, 1996). For larger public libraries.--Deborah Bigelow, Leonia P.L., Little Falls, NJ

Library Journal

Drawing from his own memories and oral narratives, Rosen recounts how his white, middle-class, largely Jewish neighborhood, built after World War II, rapidly and dramatically changed into a middle-class black community in the 1960s. He constructs 15 composite characters from the various parties to the change to express his experiences and those of people he has talked to.

Booknews

It deserves to become a classic. -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Sandy Primm

A moving testimony of many voices.

Chicago Tribune - Richard Christiansen

Deserves to become a classic...this text needs to be understood.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Sandy Primm

An authentic and memorable American story of ordinary people caught in a moral crisis.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Bernard Sahlins

A wonderful book...full of insight, verve and humanity.

Philip Friedman

A sensitive, enlightening, and highly readable narrative of White Flight.

Derrick Bell

A moving testimony of many voices.
— Richard Christiansen

Chicago Tribune

Deserves to become a classic...this text needs to be understood.
— Sandy Primm

St. Louis Post-Dispatch