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Bitter Fruit

Black Politics and the Chicago Machine, 1931-1991

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.

262 pages | 1 map, 14 tables, 7 figures | 6 x 9 | © 1992

Black Studies

Chicago and Illinois

Political Science: Urban Politics

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Pt. 1: Theoretical Perspective
1: A New Perspective on Machine Politics and Black Politics
2: Revisiting the Classics
Pt: 2 Formation and Realignment
3: The Black Democratic Realignment: Socioeconomic Needs and Racial
Values
4: Structure and Power: The "Boss" Dawson Myth
Pt. 3: Maturation and Decline
5: Daley’s Black Machine: The Productivity-Patronage Contradiction
6: The Movement and the Machine: The Cultural Limits of Political Power
Pt. 4: Transformations
7: The Daley Legacy: From Machine Politics to Racial Politics
8: Harold Washington: Reform Mayor, Black Messiah
9: Machine Politics, Reform Style
Notes
References
Index

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