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Uptown; Poor Whites In Chicago
Sociological study of poor whites in urban Chicago.
435 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
About the author
Todd Gitlin
52 books51 followersTodd Gitlin was an American writer, sociologist, communications scholar, novelist, poet, and not very private intellectual. He was professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 21, 2023
Back in the 1960’s a group of young, privileged, college-educated socialists tried to organize the poor, white southerners who settled in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. The story of this diaspora and the white urban ghetto of Uptown are fascinating. This book is not.
First off, it’s an organizational mess; a hodgepodge of unattributed quotes, uncaptioned photos, unattributed song lyrics, unattributed headlines, literary references, and confusingly italicized passages that interrupt long testimonials provided by a small handful of poor whites who were willing to participate in JOIN, the Marxist organization promoted within these pages. The testimonials have value, and one can glean from the content that the authors – to their credit – did not censor them. The life stories shared by these slum-dwelling whites are interesting and instructive, and they offer as many insights on Appalachia as they do Chicago. When these folks get to griping, though, it becomes a tedious drag. Their grievances are JOIN’s currency, so naturally there’s grievances galore, and while some are no doubt truthful, many require obvious grains of salt, and none are challenged.
It was common opinion in Chicago at the time that the poor whites of Uptown were the lowest dregs of Chicago society; lower than blacks, Puerto Ricans, and other recent migrants and minorities. The poor whites who gave their stories to the authors represent every negative stereotype attached to hillbillies: ornery, violent, criminal, alcoholic, racist, reckless, irresponsible, promiscuous, uneducated…their testimonials recall the premise of Thomas Sowell’s eye-opening book, “Black Rednecks and White Liberals” - that black ghetto culture is an outgrowth of southern white redneck culture. When the pathologies of West Virginia and Kentucky are concentrated into an urban ghetto, the similarities between poor southern whites and poor urban blacks come into sharp focus. Sowell argues that white liberals are quick to condemn white redneck dysfunction, but quick to make excuses for the same types of black ghetto dysfunction; a phenomenon he bemoans as inherently racist and harmful to blacks. But the authors of this book don’t criticize their white subjects. Back then, at least, poor whites were still in favor with socialist activists who viewed them as a potential constituency. That never really worked out, and JOIN’s short-lived presence in Uptown typified the overall failure of elite, intellectual white socialists to exploit poor and working-class whites.
One passage that really struck me took place in West Virginia. The authors accompanied one of their subjects, Ras Bryant, back home for a visit. A drunken man recognized Ras on the street and called for him to “set a spell." The drunk saw the JOIN button Ras was wearing and perceptively asked Ras if he was a “Comonist.” Ras took offence, while the author and JOIN organizer - one of the leading New Left Communists of the 60’s - stood a few feet away. Todd Gitlin spun the exchange as a principled Ras Bryant standing up to an unreasonable, paranoid, drunk. But the drunk was right, of course; JOIN was a Communist organization, and the drunk saw right through it.
JOIN stood for “Jobs or Income Now.” But did the socialist authors pay their subjects for providing the content of their capitalist (Harper & Row) enterprise? If they did, they did not mention it, and if they did not, it’s incredibly hypocritical and exploitative. The authors got married, by the way, and became very wealthy. The subjects who essentially wrote this book for them did not.
First off, it’s an organizational mess; a hodgepodge of unattributed quotes, uncaptioned photos, unattributed song lyrics, unattributed headlines, literary references, and confusingly italicized passages that interrupt long testimonials provided by a small handful of poor whites who were willing to participate in JOIN, the Marxist organization promoted within these pages. The testimonials have value, and one can glean from the content that the authors – to their credit – did not censor them. The life stories shared by these slum-dwelling whites are interesting and instructive, and they offer as many insights on Appalachia as they do Chicago. When these folks get to griping, though, it becomes a tedious drag. Their grievances are JOIN’s currency, so naturally there’s grievances galore, and while some are no doubt truthful, many require obvious grains of salt, and none are challenged.
It was common opinion in Chicago at the time that the poor whites of Uptown were the lowest dregs of Chicago society; lower than blacks, Puerto Ricans, and other recent migrants and minorities. The poor whites who gave their stories to the authors represent every negative stereotype attached to hillbillies: ornery, violent, criminal, alcoholic, racist, reckless, irresponsible, promiscuous, uneducated…their testimonials recall the premise of Thomas Sowell’s eye-opening book, “Black Rednecks and White Liberals” - that black ghetto culture is an outgrowth of southern white redneck culture. When the pathologies of West Virginia and Kentucky are concentrated into an urban ghetto, the similarities between poor southern whites and poor urban blacks come into sharp focus. Sowell argues that white liberals are quick to condemn white redneck dysfunction, but quick to make excuses for the same types of black ghetto dysfunction; a phenomenon he bemoans as inherently racist and harmful to blacks. But the authors of this book don’t criticize their white subjects. Back then, at least, poor whites were still in favor with socialist activists who viewed them as a potential constituency. That never really worked out, and JOIN’s short-lived presence in Uptown typified the overall failure of elite, intellectual white socialists to exploit poor and working-class whites.
One passage that really struck me took place in West Virginia. The authors accompanied one of their subjects, Ras Bryant, back home for a visit. A drunken man recognized Ras on the street and called for him to “set a spell." The drunk saw the JOIN button Ras was wearing and perceptively asked Ras if he was a “Comonist.” Ras took offence, while the author and JOIN organizer - one of the leading New Left Communists of the 60’s - stood a few feet away. Todd Gitlin spun the exchange as a principled Ras Bryant standing up to an unreasonable, paranoid, drunk. But the drunk was right, of course; JOIN was a Communist organization, and the drunk saw right through it.
JOIN stood for “Jobs or Income Now.” But did the socialist authors pay their subjects for providing the content of their capitalist (Harper & Row) enterprise? If they did, they did not mention it, and if they did not, it’s incredibly hypocritical and exploitative. The authors got married, by the way, and became very wealthy. The subjects who essentially wrote this book for them did not.
January 9, 2008
Would someone please reprint this book?
September 2, 2008
moving profile of a poor white ghetto in Chicago...
June 8, 2025
Plenty of books written by academics looking at data but I find interviews and oral histories (despite being antidotal) to be much more nuanced regarding the issues of the time. They often defy the media stereotypes that that ultimately become the mainstream narrative.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews