Bitter Fruit: Black Politics and the Chicago Machine, 1931-1991 - Hardcover

Grimshaw, William J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226308936 ISBN 13: 9780226308937

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1992

Synopsis

William Grimshaw offers an insider's chronicle of the tangled relationship between the black community and the Chicago Democratic machine from its Great Depression origins to 1991. What emerges is a myth-busting account not of a monolithic organization but of several distinct party regimes, each with a unique relationship to black voters and leaders.

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Reviews

In the conventional view, Chicago's black community has swapped votes for favors with the city's monolithic Democratic political machine. But the actual relationship has been far more complex, Grimshaw asserts, and black Chicagoans, continually treated as separate and unequal, are now "out in the cold, embittered, divided and lacking leadership." In this hard-hitting, incisive study, Grimshaw, associate professor of social sciences at the Illinois Institute of Technology, shows how blacks reaped minimal benefits from their relationship with Mayor Richard J. Daley, who ran the city machine from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. A onetime adviser to former Mayor Harold Washington, Grimshaw views his tenure as one of genuine reform, not simply a black version of old-fashioned patronage. He attributes much of Washington's success, however, to revulsion against what he views as the racist excesses of his predecessor, Jane Byrne. Grimshaw is deeply skeptical of current mayor Richard M. Daley, charging that "Son of Boss" has an ill-defined agenda and deep roots in the machine.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Much has been written about the political machine but little about its effect on minorities. Political activist Grimshaw (social sciences, Illinois Inst. of Technology), has written an extensive study of machine politics in Chicago, specifically from the viewpoint of African Americans. He studies how politicians went out to attract black voters and how the machines often were not as helpful as they could be. He also examines African Americans who worked within the machine and those who worked for political reform. Extremely detailed, with notes and a bibliography, this book is for readers with a knowledge of American politics and is suggested for academic libraries.
- Danna C. Bell-Russel, Marymount Univ. Libs., Arlington, Va.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226308936
• ISBN 13: 9780226308937
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 262