Fish, John Hall

Black Power/White Control: The Struggle of the Woodlawn Organization in Chicago

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973.

First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good / Very Good. Item #UB-17992
ISBN: 069109358X

First edition, hardcover, from the series Studies Religion and Society. Charcoal cloth with spine lettered in red and white, red endpapers, in the striking black, white and red photographic dust jacket (unclipped, $12.50). Very mild shelf wear, an unusually clean and bright copy. From the library of John Lewis Wood (Indianapolis attorney, active for decades with the ACLU and in school desegregation litigation). It carries his characteristic reading note on the rear free endpaper: “24 January 1975 / LUA,” the date he finished the book, with one of his three-letter notations. Wood’s own work on school desegregation gives particular resonance to his reading of a book centered on community control of Chicago’s schools. A participant’s history of The Woodlawn Organization (TWO), founded in 1961 by South Side Chicago clergy with tactical advice from Saul Alinsky, which became the leading experiment in Black community control of the 1960s. Fish covers TWO’s three most contested programs: the Youth Project with the Blackstone Rangers and the resulting clash with the Daley machine, the Woodlawn Experimental Schools project, and Model Cities. It was later reissued only in print-on-demand form, and original first editions with jacket in this condition are uncommon.

From the publisher: The vital issue facing urban America during the 1960's--the downward spiral of poverty, deterioration, and exploitation in poor neighborhoods--was attacked by The Woodlawn Organization (TWO) in Chicago. John Hall Fish, an active participant in TWO, tells the story of one of the most exciting, controversial, and significant experiments in community control.

Founded in 1961 by a group of clergymen, with tactical advice from Saul Alinsky, TWO grew to become the major force for community development and self-government in the Woodlawn area. The author traces TWO's history as it struggled to achieve significant community control over the problems that threatened the black inner-city community. He concentrates on three controversial programs: the Youth Project (involving the Blackstone Rangers), the Woodlawn Experimental Schools project, and the Model Cities program. Although TWO ultimately failed to overcome the entrenched opposition of city agencies, its very survival, the author argues, is a measure of its success. For as the cumbersome urban bureaucracies prove ever more ineffective, it is the existence of organized and experienced community organizations that will determine the possibility of neighborhood rebirth and renewal.

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Price: $50.00