The Dignity of Resistance
Women Residents' Activism in Chicago Public Housing

This chronicles the four decade history of Chicago's Wentworth Gardens public housing resident's grassroots activism.

Roberta M. Feldman (Author), Susan Stall (Author)

9780521593205, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 February 2004

410 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm, 0.68 kg

"...the authors have produced a solid piece of primary research that will be useful to researchers who study women's activism more broadly and women's grassroots activism specifically...This book is impressive in its exhaustive documentation. It would forma useful case study for courses in sociology, political science, and women's studies that attempt to unpack the dynamics of resistance." -Politics, Social Movements, and The State, Laura Suski, Dalhousie University

The Dignity of Resistance chronicles the four decade history of Chicago's Wentworth Gardens public housing residents' grassroots activism. This comprehensive case study explores why and how these African-American women creatively and effectively engaged in organizing efforts to resist increasing government disinvestment in public housing and the threat of demolition. Roberta M. Feldman and Susan Stall, utilizing a multi-disciplinary lens, explore the complexity and resourcefulness of Wentworth women's grassroots, organizing the ways in which their identities as poor African-American women and mothers both circumscribe their lives and shape their resistance. Through the inspirational voices of the activists, Feldman and Stall challenge portrayals of public housing residents as passive, alienated victims of despair. We learn instead how women residents collectively have built a cohesive, vital community, cultivated outside technical assistance, organizational and institutional supports, and have attracted funding - all to support the local facilities, services and programs necessary for the everyday needs for survival, and ultimately to save their home from demolition.

Foreword Sheila Radford-Hill
Preface and acknowledgments
Part I. Introduction: 1. Struggle for homeplace
Part II. Wentworth Gardens' Historic Context: 2. US public housing policies: Wentworth Gardens' historic backdrop
3. Memory of a better past, reality of the present: the impetus for resident activism
Part III. Everyday Resistance in the Expanded Private Sphere: 4. The community household: the foundation of everyday resistance
5. The local advisory council (LAC): a site of women-centered organizing
6. Women-centered leadership: a case study
7. The appropriation of homeplace: organizing for the spatial resources to sustain everyday life
Part IV. Transgressive Resistance in the Public Sphere: 8. The White Sox Battle: protest and betrayal
9. Linking legal action and economic development: tensions and strains
10. Becoming resident managers: a bureaucratic quagmire
Part V. Conclusions: 11. Resistance in context
Epilogue
Appendices
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Sociology & anthropology [JH]