American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland

by Robert O. Self

A gripping portrait of black power politics and the struggle for civil rights in postwar Oakland

As the birthplace of the Black Panthers and a nationwide tax revolt, California embodied a crucial motif of the postwar United States: the rise of suburbs and the decline of cities, a process in which black and white histories inextricably joined. American Babylon tells this story through Oakland and its nearby suburbs, tracing both the history of civil rights and black power politics as well as the history of suburbanization and home-owner politics. Robert Self shows that racial inequities in both New Deal and Great Society liberalism precipitated local struggles over land, jobs, taxes, and race within postwar metropolitan development. Black power and the tax revolt evolved together, in tension.

American Babylon demonstrates that the history of civil rights and black liberation politics in California did not follow a southern model, but represented a long-term struggle for economic rights that began during the World War II years and continued through the rise of the Black Panthers in the late 1960s. This struggle yielded a wide-ranging and profound critique of postwar metropolitan development and its foundation of class and racial segregation. Self traces the roots of the 1978 tax revolt to the 1940s, when home owners, real estate brokers, and the federal government used racial segregation and industrial property taxes to forge a middle-class lifestyle centered on property ownership.

Using the East Bay as a starting point, Robert Self gives us a richly detailed, engaging narrative that uniquely integrates the most important racial liberation struggles and class politics of postwar America.

Genres: History, Race, Nonfiction, American History, Politics, Urban Studies, Cities

408 pages, Paperback

First published October 13, 2003

Reviews

[Jasonrhodes71 · Rating 5 out of 5]

lily-white suburbs & cash-strapped inner cities as the result of a multi-trillion dollar federal program of real estate subsidies, in which white homeowners play the role of welfare queens while loans are permitted to flow everywhere blacks aren't. for several decades, property values rise as a result of massive subsidies. for the majority of whites, this results in an identity of "homeowner," which trumps any conception of citizenship or social class. the white racism which is maintained, shaped, created, etc., by this apartheid system of housing finance, speaks the language of middle-class rationality: I have nothing against blacks per se, I'm just worried about what they might do to property values. This book persuasively argues that this particular brand of homeowner racism, in which the government invested trillions, resulted in the suburban "white right" which brought ronald reagan to power & produced the syphilitic dementia that is the white right today. "white flight" is a misnomer. whites were pulled from the cities to the suburbs by a giant money magnet which simultaneously set up force fields keeping blacks in their place. books like this (another is thomas sugrue's "origins of the urban crisis," about post-war detroit) are indispensable for understanding the crazy country that we live in today.

[Michael Brickey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book may be one of the most influential books in my understanding of the economic and political motivations for the process of suburbanization. Amidst the homogenized suburbanization of the Bay Area, Self accounts for the existence of la colonias in the outskirts, and describes the rise of the Black Panther Party in the city itself. Self's analysis of the development of suburbs through tax-based incentives reveals much about American politics in addition to describing the spatialization of race and class in the 20th century American city.

[Kira · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was SO good but also wildly dense and I think a bit too long. Bought this for school, started reading it for fun, finished it for school. Excited about all that I learned but happy to be done. Highly recommend for an urban/historical analysis of the East Bay and a reeeeeallly good analysis of suburbanization as an extension of racial segregation post WW2

[Sara Sunshine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Painfully slow going at some points due to the dry, heavily academic language. I found myself wishing a livelier writer had tackled this project.

But there is so much good information packed in here, on race, labor, politics, economics, redevelopment, segregation, tax policies, civil rights battles, etc. A lot of the conclusions Self draws apply well beyond Oakland's borders. I can tell this book is going to influence the way I see the Bay Area, California and beyond for a long time to come.

[Sean Broesler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a continuing inspiration to me. Its focus on the spatial aspects of historical change is crucial to forming a thoroughgoing analysis.

[Sean B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Caveat: I'm an Oakland native who has an interest in urban history. After reading other reviews of this book, I was worried that it would be overly academic and dry. I didn't find it to be that way at all, but perhaps that is due to my background and interest in the book's subject.

American Babylon is not overly dense and certainly educational. I had no idea how heavily unionized the city was at the end of WW II. I also did not know that East Oakland become predominately African American in the 70s (I had assumed its demographic history was similar to West Oakland). It was also interesting to read about the suburbs of Alameda County, and how they developed differently from one another.

If you're an East Bay resident interested in its history, I think American Babylon is a must read. If you're interested in post WWII race relations, the book is also insightful.

I definitely recommend it, and I found it to be a more enjoyable read than Color of Law (which is also excellent, but was a bit more of a challenge to finish for me).

[Sara Salem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book on the history of race and property and urban space in the Bay Area. Shows how segregation was/is a conscious policy pursued by white business and the white population until today. His focus on private property and how Californians understand citizenship and personhood through owning property is fascinating and makes a lot of sense.

[John NM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful account of how and why the East bay has taken shape in the way that it has. Particularly liked the linking together of local Black political movements and how they were shaped by both local conditions (citywide elections) and national trends (war on poverty). The focus on the spatial interaction of the cities/counties is particularly interesting when thinking about tax competition and migration.

Stylistically not as compelling as something like "Making the Second Ghetto" as it often leans to "telling" as opposed to "showing", if that makes sense.

[Kaileigh Q · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the themes in this book are incredibly important, the writing is just bland. I was genuinely interested in the topics, which is what made this read so disappointing. Maybe I just don't have the attention span for this man's writing, but I found myself having to reread sections multiple times to really process what was being said. I'm sure this would be a great read for someone, just not for me.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of this book include interesting stories and information. Other parts are stretches of big words and academic phrases that, added together, don't say much at all. If you are like me and have trouble reading stretches of this book, I recommend skipping pages that wander off into social science academic speak.

[Danielle Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent critical historical work on postwar Oakland

[Jared Jenkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

No hand-waving. A detailed report on social movements and development of African American communities in Oakland.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

incredible explanatory power

[D.M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be required reading for anyone who lives or works in Oakland

[Sam G · Rating 5 out of 5]

The definitive modern history of the East Bay and its people.

[Amy]

If we move to east bay, this is supposed to be an instructive history, maybe better than the new “Hella Town”.

[JRT · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a comprehensive and detailed account on how the politics of racial capitalism molded Oakland, CA and created the conditions that people from the Town know all too well. It details how housing segregation, employment discrimination, deindustrialization, and suburbanization coalesced and culminated in the creation of African-Am slums in Oakland, as well as white-centric "Industrial Gardens" in other East Bay cities. It also explains, in great detail, the failure of liberalism, and how New Deal liberalism's half-stepping on racial economic justice is directly responsible for the creation of the "Black ghetto." It also sheds light on "NIMBYism" and how resource-hoarding led to the Prop 13 tax revolt. Tremendous account.

[David Bates · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert O. Self’s 2003 study of Oakland, American Babylon, makes many of the same connections. Following the history of Oakland from the 1940s through 1978, Self argues that the Black Power Movement and the Conservative Movement evolved in tandem as political manifestations of the underlying contest between predominantly black inner city residents and white suburbanites. Plans during the 1940s to turn Oakland into an industrial garden with good living conditions and shared prosperity foundered on the reality of a metropolitan redevelopment plan executed in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Guided by downtown business interests, the black neighborhoods of West Oakland were marginalized by new highways, the Bay Area Rapid Transit System and new port facilities whose development cut residents off from labor markets and dislocate hundreds of homeowners and businesses. Excluded from the building trades by racially exclusive unions, blacks drew no profit from the construction of the suburbs rising in the hills around the city such as San Leandro, Milpitas and Fremont. The availability of cheap federal loans enabled white Oakland to largely relocate to these new communities, where industry, encouraged by tax breaks, followed. Racial discrimination in loans and restrictive housing covenants prevented black families from making a similar trek. Self takes issue with the idea that it was entirely “white flight” from an expanding black population however, noting that the movement to the suburbs was underway long before blacks started moving into what had previously been white neighborhoods. While not minimizing racial hostility, Self argues that structural factors were, by the early 1960s the force which would underwrite the antagonistic racial divide between Black Power activists seeking community control and white Conservative suburbanites defensively seeking autonomy from the mounting problems of the urban core. As coherent as the city and its suburbs appeared in 1964, it was “in reality a set of distinct property and employment markets, tax bases, and zones of affluence, segregated by race and divided by municipal political boundaries.” Suburbanites by the 1970s had come to understand their interests, political obligations and the limits of their social responsibility within spatial communities. By the time the Black Power Movement succeeded in mobilizing their community politically and electing black politicians to municipal and state government in the 1970s they were caught in a bind, arguing for neighborhood self-determination but that urban blight was not the product of this self-determination.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable social science book. An archaeology of inequality.

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I imagine I'll return to this book often, particularly the sections on fair housing, an emerging interest of mine. The author traces the economic decline of cities and the concurrent development of suburbs in the East Bay during the 1940s-1970s, arguing that what has become commonly understood as 'White flight' was not only racially, but also economically motivated. Indeed, residential racial segregation between Oakland and its suburbs was largely facilitated by the real estate industry, which had a financial stake in maintaining segregated developments, as well as the Federal Housing Administration, which guaranteed home loans almost exclusively to White buyers. (And similar scenarios played out in numerous metro areas across the country.) I was surprised to learn that the same suburban Whites who supported the liberal welfare policies of Lyndon Johnson overwhelmingly supported Prop 14, which repealed the Rumford Fair Housing Act, passed in the early '60s, in the name of 'individual property rights.' But, the tension between individual rights v. the common good is nothing new in our national history (and is a particularly salient debate within educational policy, both historically and contemporarily). Within a context in which fair housing--as well as equal employment, equal education, and, more generally, the War on Poverty policies--generally failed to uplift Oakland's poor Black population, Self discusses the emergence of Black self-liberation politics and Black Power.

A great supplementary experience to reading this book was seeing "Not a Genuine Black Man," an amazing one-man show by Brian Copeland, in which he touchingly and humorously chronicles his experience growing up in the Oakland suburb of San Leandro in the 1970s.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

The industrial garden vision, created by postwar metropolitan boosters and maintained for decades after, relies upon two particularly modern orderings: spatial classification and social regulation. The details of the dream changed over time, and between different people and groups. But in its broad, postwar conception, the dream has two dimensions: “class harmony in pastoral cities,” (9) and an “endless horizon of upward social mobility” (8). The mechanisms which planted and fertilized this industrial garden are familiar: the spatialized social classifications reflected in zoning decisions and redlined neighborhoods; the socialized spatial ideologies reflected in political battles over the “right” to discriminate. Reflecting back on All That Is Solid…, we can see the industrial garden as an unexpected mirror to Marx’ promise of cyclical class struggle culminating in the rule of proletariat. Both views are, of course, utopian. What Self is suggested, however, is that behind the modern rhetoric of constant expansion lies another, seemingly contradictory goal: socioeconomic instability and unpredictability contained by controlling and patrolling the boundaries of civic spaces. It is the tension between the garden dream and the lived reality of Oakland’s economic, political and spatial arrangements the lies at the core of Self’s argument. The metaphor of urban space as industrial garden cloaks a “have your cake and eat it too” vision of modernist progress and politics that finally cannot accommodate the conflicting desires of Oakland and its suburbs. From Self’s perspective, this inability to tolerate instability and change is the original sin in the (modern?) garden.

[Noah · Rating 2 out of 5]

People have been recommending this to me for ages, but I just couldn't get into it. I suppose there's just no reason to read a dissertation book if you don't have to, and especially if you're on the subway, but I thought that understanding a peripheral industrial port city would be interesting while commuting into Newark (a comparison that Self makes too). But at the end of the day, I just think there's not enough new in there and too much Marxobabble. For example, he says that he's bringing together urban history, suburban history, and civil rights history. Don't all books do that? Ditto focusing on federal subsidies for the suburbs as a "pull" for white flight rather than only looking at urban decline. Generally, I didn't see anything in here that changed my perception of urban history at all. And all the extra words and paragraphs where he pays homage to this theorist, or satisfies some committee member by randomly talking about women in a section where they don't fit, or keeps talking about capital and power as if those terms changed his analysis at all, just make it drag, drag, drag. I couldn't finish it.

[Kb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Sugrue's comparable study of Detroit, Self traces Oakland's urban crisis back decades before the the violence of the late sixties to the idealized days of postwar prosperity. Self's approach traces the flow of capital within spaces as a measure of power and privilege. Of key importance was the municipal political structure that firmly kept power in the hands of conservative business interests at the expense of an increasingly frustrated African American community. One of the strengths of this book how it traces the development of divergent political strands within that African American community, including the militant Black Panther movement for which Oakland is best known. The most pertinent aspect of this study is the exposure of fissures between levels of government that allowed for the decline of the city for the benefit of the wealthy, white suburbs.

[Stuart Woolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finding a good book on Oakland's history, especially its recent history, has proven to be something of a needle-in-haystack endeavor. A friend recommended this book to me, warning it was a little academic, and possibly intended for grad students.

While I did learn a few things about Oakland and appreciated the book's analysis of historical processes (as opposed to, say, the decisions of Big Men), I felt it was light on concrete information (or was, at the very least, written in a style that downplayed the significance of particulars to draw greater attention to overarching theoretical constructs). For this reason, I did not finish the book. Judging from other reviews, I am guessing the book ends exactly as I expect, replete with "metaphors of urban space."

[Jo Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to agree with other reviewers about the dry academic language. I cringed every time I read the words laborite and normative. However, the book has so much information that I persevered and I am glad I did. If you live in the Bay Area, this book will make you understand why out physical space is laid out the way it is and why the cities of the region are the way they are.

[Jakki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I confess that I read only part of this book before it was due at the library, but I loved learning about the historical race and class divides in Oakland and the East Bay. It sheds light on the way these issues still play out here, and is also rather depressing when you realize how little we've advanced since the 1940s-60s. An important read for understanding social justice issues in Oakland!

[Rebecca]

Linda was right. Way academic. Not exactly dry, but so focused on analyzing "metaphors for urban space" or whatever his lens is that you have to squint to find actual information! Is it too much to ask for a little history in my history books?

[Michael Meloy · Rating 4 out of 5]

great introduction to the east bay landscape, urban life and impact of the "industrial garden." Anyone interested in Prop. 14 and Prop. 13 should read. In other words, if living in California, read.

[Rob McB · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a recent transplant from SF to Oakland, I found this to be an invaluable introduction to my new home. And Self makes it clear that this means not just Oakland, but the whole East Bay. Detailed and a little dry, but not terribly so. Excellent maps and photos.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

cutting edge scholarly work.