by Roberta
Feldman & Susan Stall, 2004
The
Dignity of Resistance chronicles the four decade history of
Chicago's Wentworth Gardens public housing residents' grassroots
activism. This comprehensive case study explores why and how these
African-American women creatively and effectively engaged in
organizing efforts to resist increasing government disinvestment in
public housing and the threat of demolition. Roberta M. Feldman and
Susan Stall, utilizing a multi-disciplinary lens, explore the
complexity and resourcefulness of Wentworth women's grassroots,
organizing the ways in which their identities as poor
African-American women and mothers both circumscribe their lives and
shape their resistance.
Through the
inspirational voices of the activists, Feldman and Stall challenge
portrayals of public housing residents as passive, alienated victims
of despair. We learn instead how women residents collectively have
built a cohesive, vital community, cultivated outside technical
assistance, organizational and institutional supports, and have
attracted funding - all to support the local facilities, services and
programs necessary for the everyday needs for survival, and
ultimately to save their home from demolition.
