Humanities in the Village: The History of Baltimore Housing and Suburbia

Description

Join the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute for a discussion with Greg Smithsimon about his book Liberty Road" Black Middle-Class Suburbs and the Battle Between Civil Rights and Neoliberalism, moderated by Lawrence Jackson, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of English and history and author of Shelter (2022), and an audience Q&A.

"Half of Black Americans who live in the one hundred largest metropolitan areas are now living in suburbs, not cities. In Liberty Road, Gregory Smithsimon shows us how this happened, and why it matters, unearthing the hidden role that suburbs played in establishing the Black middle-class.

Focusing on Liberty Road, a Black middle-class suburb of Baltimore, Smithsimon tells the remarkable story of how residents broke the color barrier, against all odds, in the face of racial discrimination, tensions with suburban whites and urban Blacks, and economic crises like the mortgage meltdown of 2008. Drawing on interviews, census data, and archival research, he shows us the unique strategies that suburban Black residents in Liberty Road employed, creating a blueprint for other Black middle-class suburbs" (from the publisher).