>> free at least to pursue a private life, the man with the passion for facts will long be an example to those who follow in the army, in the government of his country, and in a peaceful world he worked so hard to make. now this is sergeant stewart queen and inviting you to be with us again for another look at the big picture. >> the big picture is an official report for the armed forces and the american people. produced by the army pictorial center. presented by the department of the army in connection with this station.

you can watch the classes here every saturday at 8 p.m. and midnight eastern and sundays at 1 p.m. eastern. this week an examination of urban america in the mid-20th century with brian purnell, from boden college at maine, race, class, gender and the urban crisis which covers the social, economic, political and cultural dynamics of u.s. cities after world war ii. this lasts an hour and 20 minutes. >> so today is a lecture on the origins of the urban crisis. the term urban crisis is in the title of this class, race, class, gender and the urban crisis. we use the hbo miniseries the wire as a text to study or to think about the urban crisis and also again we use the wire for

the sociological presentation it gives us of post war american cities and also to ask questions of it because it gives us this through the police procedural, right, through fighting crime or through police and criminals a many things, but it also over clueds and hides so we use it for what it does and doesn't do. today's lecture is more or less a historical oved that comes from the title of a book 1995 book by thomas sigrew and you read an excerpt. it is the origins of the urban cris

detroit, and that is where i am using the title of the lecture. what will this lecture do? it does about five things. one, it will give an overview of the concept of the post war urban crisis. what does that term mean? two, we will do some historical contrasts between what arnold hirsh referred to as the black enclaves or black communities or maybe you call it the first ghetto and what he labels as the second ghetto. three, we will review quickly the impact of industrialization on northeastern and midwestern cities. four, we'll talk a bit about -- and that comes from the ssgrew

and the fourth piece that refers to robert self's selection and a bit about the spatial dynamics and implications of post war suburban/urban divides and that concentration is on oakland and southern alameda county and, last, the fifth thing we'll do many this lecture is raise questions and implications of this history and that's where the wakont piece you read from slavery to mass incarceration comes in and also where the john mcworther piece you read comes into play. there was comments before class about how mcwater is very strong, clear, critic of a lot of what you read, right, and i think that it is important that

we read multiple approaches to these questions, right? we can't just read one particular argument from one particular point of view. that's why i gave you the piece from his week "winning the race" which is a criticism of much of the other things you read. so the post war urban crisis, i will start there. what was it? what was the urban crisis or what is this historical phenomenon that i am referring to as the urban crisis? on the one hand it is political and cultural reactions to mid-to-late 1960s violence and disorder in american cities. it is also a shorthand explanation for the fiscal insecurity, a lot of cities, northeastern and midwestern

cities are experiencing fiscal crisis in which is basically they can't pay their bills. the urban crisis refers to the fiscal insecurity that's besetting many northeastern and midwestern cities. it refers to the decline in services that rack many northeastern and midwestern cities, decline in police protection, fire, transportation, sanitation, which is related to the inability of cities to pay their bills. so it also refers to the loss of a tax base, the loss of tax revenue, so the urban crisis is a way to talk about these political and cultural phenomena, the violence and disorder which i will talk more about in detail as well as the fiscal insecurity that is really hitting american cities in the northeast and midwest rticularl. so in the urban crisis as a concept it is an overarching way to think about a confluence of

social issues, crime, disinvestment, abandonment, the abandonment of housing, and depopulation, what will the of government be in american cities, the role of government in policing, in sanitation, in education? how will government in cities deal with housing issues in the late 20th century? how will it deal with loss of employment? how will it deal with this all encompassing concept of race relations? i am still not totally sure about what people mean by race relations. i think in the mid-20th century and beyond race relations was this way to talk about racism, to talk about the effects of racism, and to talk about how in cities, right, primarily how

african-american and black populations would fare as citizens. black populations are particularly important when we're talking about post war american cities and we'll see why later on in the lecture because their numbers swell so much. in the mid-20th century because there are so many structures, right, if we can go back to our study and the sober logical imagination and i will revisit that a bit and there are so many structures that shape black people's lives in cities in particular ways, and these create again what mills would refer to as social issues. these create social issues and crises, right, a crisis of segregation in housing. there is a crisis of poverty and unemployment. some would argue there are

crisis in crime in cities. it is important we focus on block populations talking about the urban crisis for structural issues. what caused the urban crisis? there are four main things that i am going to hit on and kind of a half one that i will throw out right now. one of the things that people say caused the urban crisis is black migration. that's one of the arguments at the time. that's one of the arguments, kind of one of the myths in the stories that people who lived in cities who were immigrants who grew up in communities that they see transformed, that's kind of one of the stories and arguments they make. what happened to american cities? why did they suffer all of these

calamities? well, it is because right at the time in the mid-20th century when african-americans move fr tng t decline and the reason for the decline must have something to do with these newcomers. it must have something to do with who they are, the culture they bring and the culture of poverty people start to talk about and the behavioral practices. tieshange the way they do. it is not for a structural issue. it is not for a political issue. it is a cultural issue, a behavioral issue, the way that are. now, i think much of the rest of the lecture will engage in that form, so i will let it hang there for a bit. i am not telling you if it is right or wrong. the other causes of the urban crisis that people at the time and scholars since have pieced

history of it and the structural reasons for it as a social issue. to mills, if we argue these problems, these problems of abandonment, loss of tax base, loss of jobs, right, residential segregation, if we argue those are the fault of the people who came, then we're treating it as what, right, mills would say that's treating it as an individual trouble, that this is the result of these individuals and their individual troubles. therefore the solution is you just fix them, right, if you fix the way they act, the way they think, then you will fix the urban crisis. okay. my personal and my personal opinion and opinion as an historian is that doesn't make much sense. personal behavior not could cause the problems we see with

the urban crisis. it is not the result of what some people too. we have to look at it structurally. we have to ask those three questions that mills invited us to ask, right? what's the structure of the society? what's the history of the society? who prevails and who doesn't? who wins and who loses? who has power that's kind of a half answer to the question what caused the urban crisis. i say that in the beginning and i say it because i want to you think about it. i want you to think about those arguments and think seriously, take them seriously, and one thing that caused the urban crisis and this is straight out of the report that followed the 1960s violence is that racial discrimination caused the urban crisis. that is straight out of the turner commission report or the report of the national advisory commission on civil disorders

published in 1968. racial discrimination caused erup in cities particularly the in the mid-1960s. if i could could give you insight. starting around 1964 we're at the time people refer to them as race riots and others of different political position called them urban values or uprising and some of you took racial and ethnic conflict in the city and this will be familiar and punctuated moments pretty -- some of them are catastrophic. the first one which doesn't get a lot of attention happens in new york, right, 1964, and the summer of 1964 and officer off

duty shoots and kills an african-american teenaged young man in manhattan. harlem and bedford people come together in rally against this act, what they see as an act of aggression, and act of police brutality and violence spurs, you know, from those collective gatherings. in the end one person dies. 500 are injured. 465 arrested and up to a million dollars in property damage. that's 1964. not many histories of the mid-60s disorders takes that new york moment into account. people really start to wake up and pay attention to the possibilities of urban violence in black sections of cities in 1965 with los angeles. hirsch made reference to it a bit.

august 11, 1965, violence spreads throughout the section of los angeles for six days in response to an altercation between an african-american citizen and a police officer, six days of violence that results in 34 dead people, 1,032 injured, 3,400 arrested, and the national guard is called in, and over 970 buildings are damaged or destroyed estimated at $40 million in property loss. that's los angeles 1965. 1967 is a long hot summer in the language of the 1960s insofar as there are multiple moments and the two largest concentrating in detroit and newark, again both tied to altercations, misunderstandings, moments of violence exchange between

african-americans and police officers and july 12th through 17th 1967 newark erupts into disorder that results in 26 people dead and 725 injured and 1,500 arrested and property damages estimated at over $10 million. detroit after a police raid l a hours establishment, detroit erupts into violence for four 33 black, ten white, 467 injured, 7,200 arrested, half of om indicated, 2500 stores looted, 388 families left homeless, 412 buildings damaged and demolished

and between 40 and $80 million in property damage in the detroit violence. so this is a crisis. i think mills would agree or mills would kind of -- this would be something he would point to a disruption in collective value that leads to a moment of crisis and so when the federal government brings a these moments of disorder, moments of violence, they want to ask three main questions, what happened? why did it happen and how can we prevent it from happening again? the overarching theme of the commission report is that racial introduction and the commission report states our nation is moving towards two sides, one black, one white, separate and unequal, and later on in the

introduction to the report the commission surmises that what white americans have never fully understood but what the negro can never forget is white society is deeply implicated in the get over. they created it, maintained it and condoned it. so much focus regarding the causes of the urban crisis was on the violence in black of cit. people were -- for a lot of people in america this came out of nowhere. where did this happen? especially given that it is the mid-1960s, right, and this would be a time normally i ask you a question. can i do that? anybody feel bold enough to step up? you know the answer. we can do this.

what's happening in the mid-1960s in the united states that might cause people in the country to look at this violence in american cities and emanating from black sections with befuddlement and curiosity? where did this come from? what is going on in the country at that time that directly involves african-americans, that directly involves -- now i am giving it away, that would cause these people in l.a. angry about? come on. nobody? nobody is going to answer this? >> you have to come to the microphone, man. come on, for that now. >> there you go. >> the civil rights movement. >> the civil rights movement. very good. the civil rights movement is happening.

civil rights act of 1964 passes, outlaws racial discr imat section 7 on employment, antidiscrimination on employment, major piece of legislation that redefines hap civil war reconstruction. erupts the united states passes the voting rights act, right, bringing into kind of fruition the promises and the 15th the promises enshrined in the 15th amendment after the civil war and all of this disorder amongst african-americans in cities and people around the un i should say african-americans or activists who had been in the cities for decades knew that these types of things potentially could happen. they had been talking about it for decades. the rest of the country wasn't used to thinking about racial

discrimination in cities, outside of the south.y dn't know in some ways or didn't want to know what racial discrimination looked like if there was no jim crow sign hanging on the water fountain or bathroom. how can there be racism in places that have those? how can you have them in places like chicago where african-americans can vote? race six a southern phenomenon, americans believe. so this violence that erupts in the mid-1960s seems like it comes out of nowhere. that's one reason to point to what caused the urban crisis. another is the phenomenon of suburbanization, so the loss of the urban tax base, and particularly the loss of the urban tax base at the precise

moment when city services, especially for poor citizens are most strained. is the time, the loss, the erosion of the tax base, the loss of tax dollars at a moment when cities have to deal with housing issues, increased housing issues for poor and unemployed residents, when the cities coming in contact with the needs to deal with youth issues, youth programs, youth unemployment, and when increased population in cities is putting strains on infrastructure such as public schools, when increased crime is putting more strain on police departments, when abandonment and arson is putting strain on fire departments, at the precise moment that cities need tax dollars the most to fund services is the moment when they are losing those tax dollars, right, primarily due to

suburbanization and employment and the industrialization, but suburbanization, the loss of the tax base that sometimes people refer to as white flight. you may have heard that term white flight. it is true. cities are hemorrhaging white folk for a few reasons which we'll get to. we'll get to them in a bit. the white flight argument can take on a few connotations that don't really help to explain what happened in cities or really doesn't have to explain what caused white flight. if you just say why are cities going down the tubes in the mid 1960s, white people are leaving. there is this kind of individual lis particular trouble way to think about t white people are leaving and that's what's causing the cities to go down. if they stayed, they wouldn't be

suffering the social calamities, right? i think again when you take structure into consideration and ask about the history, the simple fact of white people leaving doesn't explain what caused the crisis. also, just by saying white people left the cities, leaves it as individual choice when again based on what you read there were structures put in place. suburbanization was a process facilitated by government, underwritten by housing interests and funded by banks and suburbanization was a process of spatial segmentation and racial segregation in which all of these structures were involved. it is not just simply a matter of white people were leaving and that's what caused these

problems and heather tompson so, she makes an interesting argument where she says white flight doesn't really kind of begin to end until the 1970s, right, and these are cities erupting in the mid-1960s, and she argues it is the mid-1970s if you really look at detroit white flight reaches its climax in the mid-1970s and beyond and she making the argument it is at that moment that white people in detroit controlled the politics and the major stakeholders, it is at that point she argues whites in detroit realized we can't control this city anymore, right? it is the black voters are going to control the city. since we no longer are major stakeholders in the city and we can, we leave.

the white flight argument, again, it reveals some important phenomena and hides important phenomena. it is the second reason they point to for what caused the urban crisis. the last two that i will speak to, i will speak to briefly. the third argument that people make for the cause of the urban crisis is liberals, right, and liberal spending, not the type of liberalism -- well, mcwater, he points to this in the chapter you read, that liberals are largely responsible for the terrible situation that black people in cities find themselves in and he tries to make the case this is about welfare, right, because liberals kind of put it in black people's heads or put forward a welfare rights movement that that's what kepts clamped down into this inescapable rut in cities. that's not the type of g about. liberal spending primarily on

the power of democratic controlled municipalities in influenced by unions, municipal unions. they have really strong social safety net programs, a lot of these new deal programs, right, to deal with questions of poverty, housing, education, social service, health and that come about in the second third of the 20th century, one argument is that they were spending too much. they were spending too much money. they were spng it is too much money on social programs, but also too much money on labor, right? in short, city workers in northeastern and midwestern cities lived too good. they had it too good. their pensions were too high and salaries were too high and the

productivity was not competitive with a free market. the argument that what caused the crisis was liberal spending is also something to consider, right, cities outspent themselves and unions had such a strong powerful grip on city politics and this is what some people argued, that there was no escaping this problem. you can't get away from it because unions are too powerful. they'll go on strike like they did in new york city. there is a transit strike in 1967. there is a transit strike in sanitation strike, 1967, teacher strike 1967 and 1968 and three major areas of municipal life that bring the city to its knees in some ways, so the liberal spending argument is cities decline because municipal unions are too powerful and cities spend too much and no way to get out of that.

the last argument about the cause of the urban crisis is black militants, crazy black people did this.that the argume outsiders, right, black stoly from an office in d.c. stretched his tentacles out and caused them to rise up in rebel i don't know. decision afternoon effected mall con at any times, the people that fomented this violence. now, the interviews, sociologists and political scientists at the time did interviews with people involved r