Urban Black women and the politics of resistance

About this book

"Contemporary urban spaces are critical sites of resistance for black women. By focusing on the spatial aspects of political resistance of black women in Newark's Central Ward, this book provides new ways of understanding the complex dynamics and innovative political practices within major American cities. Activist women devote their lives to creating and sustaining clothing exchanges, sister-circles, rites of passage programs and other open and progressive spaces of struggle. In so doing, they transform blighted cityscapes into culturally symbolic homeplaces that nurture the life chances, leadership capacity of political efficacy of an emerging generation of activists. By documenting their political commitments and transformative projects, Isoke demonstrates how black women challenge, resist and transform converging systems of domination that circumscribe their lives"-- "Urban Black Women and the Politics of Resistance explores how three generations of black women have contested racism, poverty, and marginality in Newark, New Jersey. Isoke provides a black feminist ethnographic account of the unique and divergent forms of contemporary spatial resistance across the political terrain of hip hop activism, black queer activism, and the "politics of homemaking." Set in the heart of Newark's historically black Central Ward, Isoke argues that black women have forged a geography of resistance through their sustained efforts to transform the city"--