Race, leadership, and the local machine: The origins of the African American struggle for political recognition and the politics of community control in Philadelphia, 1915--1968

Much of what we know about the legacy of black electoral politics in the urban north stems from two important periods in United States history: Reconstruction and the late twentieth century. The political disenfranchisement of African Americans during the post-Reconstruction era and the transition from Black Power protests to elective office has been well documented by both civil rights and urban historians. What little we know about the history of black electoral politics following post-Reconstruction leading up to the late twentieth century has been largely the story of political machines and the ways in which they served as impediments to advancing civil rights agendas. In one sense the events that shaped the political expressions and transformation during the era of Black Power are valid and thus deserving of scholarly treatment. The main problem with the growing literature is that it is predicated on the notion that during the period between post-Reconstruction and World War II African American political leadership within the electoral arena had all but acquiesced to an image of powerlessness, corruption, and lack of accountability to the black community. This outcome has tended to overstate the significance of the late twentieth century as the most important period for understanding a longer history of black electoral activity in the modern era. It also privileges protest politics over electoral politics rather than examining how each shaped the other.;I explore more than 50 years of black electoral activity within one of America's most important northern industrial centers: the city of Philadelphia from 1915-1968. The project builds from Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois', The Philadelphia Negro. In doing so, it challenges preexisting assumptions on black electoral behavior in the urban North and it addresses important gaps in American civil rights historiography, Africana Studies, and Urban Studies.