“Crucibles of Black Empowerment successfully explores the motivations and sources of how community-based protest politics counterbalanced the apathy and connivance of establishment politics and politicians over one half-century in efforts aimed at improving black life in Chicago. The activists who made this reality are both known and unknown, and include Rev. Addie Wyatt, Ida B. Wells, and Lovelyn Evans in labor, social service, and employment, along with Tim Black, Sidney Williams, Ed ‘the Iron Master’ Wright, and Ed Doty in civil rights, politics, and labor.”

Christopher Robert Reed | Roosevelt University

“Spanning five decades of history, Crucibles of Black Empowerment chronicles the community-based struggles waged by black Chicagoans against an unholy trinity of racial, class, and gender inequalities. Using identities forged by work, family, and community, they pursued individual opportunity and collective welfare through economic initiative, political mobilization, unionization, protest, and patient institution building. More than anything else, Jeffrey Helgeson champions the durability of black Chicago’s pragmatic liberal tradition.”

Clarence Lang | author of Grassroots at the Gateway: Class Politics and Black Freedom Struggle in St. Louis, 1936-75

“Jeffrey Helgeson’s Crucibles of Black Empowerment is a sweeping, compelling, and original contribution to Chicago’s rich African American history that addresses a wide range of subjects: individual and collective aspirations, the Second Great Migration, neighborhood activism, employment and housing discrimination, and political mobilizations in the mid-20th century, among other things.  Grounded in exhaustive research, Helgeson’s study meticulously reconstructs the contours of a liberal political culture in black Chicago that highlighted individual opportunity, pursued interracial coalitions, and advocated for governmental action to produce social change.  On many levels this is a model study of black community politics and protest that should be required reading for anyone interested in Chicago’s—and the country’s—troubled racial past.”

Eric Arnesen | George Washington University

"Highly recommended."

Choice

“Helgeson’s analysis is informative and well-written, chronicling an important period in 20th century African American history. Helgeson expands on earlier studies of black Chicago utilizing sources that are original and enlightening. His examination of the influence of the NOI newspaper Muhammad Speaks shows how critical this publication was in developing a number of community-based programs and in leading the charge for the election of black candidates who would be independent of the Daley machines. Based on the skillful use of primary sources from a wide variety of archival collections, Crucibles of Black Empowerment is an insightful work that should be useful to researchers and students interested in understanding how Civil Rights, Black Power, and other national movements played out at the local level.”

Journal of African American History