A HOUSE FOR THE STRUGGLE:
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Buildings once symbolized Chicago's place as the business capital of Black America and a thriving hub for Black media.
A House for the Struggle explores these intersecting histories through a bold re-reading of Chicago's Black Press through the lens of the built environment. The buildings that produced publications like Ebony and the Chicago Defender became key landmarks of Black urban life; vital to the narratives of racial uplift, community resistance, and collective struggle that the Black press simultaneously endorsed and embodied. At the same time, factors ranging from discriminatory business practices to the personal preferences of Black media barons prescribed a building's location, use, and appearance, situating them at the crossroads of where aspiration collided with life in one of America's most segregated cities. |
RECOGNITION
Named a "Must Read" by the Chicago Review of Books
PRAISE
Through the lens of the built environment, West’s compelling narrative takes us inside the newsrooms of the Defender, Ebony, and other rival publications--from their humble origins to the height of their power. But what makes this book extraordinary is how West examines these shifting Black spaces of journalism as crucial sites of intellectual labor, ideological debate, and enterprise that profoundly shaped Chicago urban history, Black identity, and protest politics in twentieth century America.
- Erik S. Gellman, author of Troublemakers: Chicago Freedom Struggles through the Lens of Art Shay -
A House for the Struggle breaks new ground by assessing Chicago’s Black newspapers and magazines together, and by connecting them to the buildings and neighborhoods where they operated...West reminds us that journalists with national reach and tremendous ambition still faced the frustrations and indignities of life in a segregated metropolis, and he helps us to understand Chicago as the true capital of the twentieth-century Black press.
- Julia Guarneri, author of Newsprint Metropolis: City Papers and the Making of Modern Americans -
An eye opening, compelling read...West shows that Black press buildings on Chicago's South Side were symbolic of communtiy pride, unity and success, as well as crucial meeting places in the fight for Black autonomy and civil rights
- New City -
- Erik S. Gellman, author of Troublemakers: Chicago Freedom Struggles through the Lens of Art Shay -
A House for the Struggle breaks new ground by assessing Chicago’s Black newspapers and magazines together, and by connecting them to the buildings and neighborhoods where they operated...West reminds us that journalists with national reach and tremendous ambition still faced the frustrations and indignities of life in a segregated metropolis, and he helps us to understand Chicago as the true capital of the twentieth-century Black press.
- Julia Guarneri, author of Newsprint Metropolis: City Papers and the Making of Modern Americans -
An eye opening, compelling read...West shows that Black press buildings on Chicago's South Side were symbolic of communtiy pride, unity and success, as well as crucial meeting places in the fight for Black autonomy and civil rights
- New City -