Struggle for the City: Rhetorics of Citizenship and Resistance in the Black Freedom Movement

The UW System Faculty Lecture Series and The Center for 21st Century Studies at UWM present Derek Handley. Register for this online event to receive the link. A clickable link is below in the website section or copy and paste: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/uw-system-faculty-lecture-series-derek-handley-tickets-1043213679197

The urban renewal policies of the 1950s and 1960s destroyed the economic centers of many Black neighborhoods in the United States. Struggle for the City recovers the agency and solidarity of African American residents confronting this diagnosis of “blight.” This presentation discusses how African American residents in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, the Bronzeville neighborhood of Milwaukee, and the Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul enacted Black Rhetorical Citizenship to fight for their communities. By centering the residents in their own narratives of displacement, this presentation demonstrates how local organizers, leaders, and residents used rhetorics of placemaking, community organizing, and critical memory to resist the bulldozing visions of urban renewal.

Derek G. Handley is an assistant professor in the English Department, affiliated faculty in African and African Diaspora Studies department, and affiliated faculty in the Urban Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is co-director of the Mapping Racism and Resistance in Milwaukee County (MRR-MKE) project, which comprehensively maps racial covenants and uncovers Black resistance to such discrimination.

The UW System Lecture Series is co-hosted by C21 and UW-Madison’s Center for the Humanities and highlights faculty research across the Universities of Wisconsin.