Derek G Handley, author of Struggle for the City, a Boswell event

Boswell Book Company presents an evening with Derek G Handley, author of Struggle for the City: Citizenship and Resistance in the Black Freedom Movement as he discusses strategies of resistance that continue to influence the actions of the Black Freedom Movement, including Black Lives Matter, at this free event.

Derek G. Handley shows how African American residents in three communities–the Hill district of Pittsburgh, the Bronzeville neighborhood of Milwaukee, and the Rondo district of St. Paul–enacted a new form of citizenship to fight for their neighborhoods. Dubbing this the “Black Rhetorical Citizenship,” a nod to the integral role of language and other symbolic means in the Black Freedom Movement, Handley situates citizenship as both a site of resistance and a mode of public engagement that cannot be divorced from race and the effects of racism. Through this framework, Struggle for the City 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 Assistant Professor in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is also affiliated faculty in the African Diaspora Studies Department and in the Urban Studies program.

Click here to order your copy of Struggle for the City: Citizenship and Resistance in the Black Freedom Movement from Boswell. Signed copies and personalization available on pre-orders. Please note that signed copies will not be shipped until after the event.