Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black

Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance

â€œSmoketown brilliantly offers us a chance to see this other black renaissance and spend time with the many luminaries who sparked itâ€¦Itâ€™s thanks to such a gifted storyteller as Whitaker that this forgotten chapter of American history can finally be told in all its vibrancy and glory.â€â€”The New York Times Book Review

The other great Renaissance of black culture, influence, and glamour burst forth joyfully in what may seem an unlikely placeâ€”Pittsburgh, PAâ€”from the 1920s through the 1950s.

Today black Pittsburgh is known as the setting for August Wilsonâ€™s famed plays about noble but doomed working-class strivers. But this community once had an impact on American history that rivaled the far larger black worlds of Harlem and Chicago. It published the most widely read black newspaper in the country, urging black voters to switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party and then rallying black support for World War II. It fielded two of the greatest baseball teams of the Negro Leagues and introduced Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Pittsburgh was the childhood home of jazz pioneers Billy Strayhorn, Billy Eckstine, Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner; Hall of Fame slugger Josh Gibsonâ€”and August Wilson himself. Some of the most glittering figures of the era were changed forever by the time they spent in the city, from Joe Louis and Satchel Paige to Duke Ellington and Lena Horne.

Mark Whitakerâ€™s Smoketown is a captivating portrait of this unsung community and a vital addition to the story of black America. It depicts how ambitious Southern migrants were drawn to a steel-making city on a strategic river junction; how they were shaped by its schools and a spirit of commerce with roots in the Gilded Age; and how their world was eventually destroyed by industrial decline and urban renewal. Whitaker takes readers on a rousing, revelatory journeyâ€”and offers a timely reminder that Black History is not all bleak.
Country USA
Brand Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer Simon & Schuster
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber 9781501122392
ReleaseDate 2018-01-30
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781501122392

Country	USA
Brand	Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer	Simon & Schuster
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	9781501122392
ReleaseDate	2018-01-30
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781501122392

Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance

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