AF AMER M5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Dionne Warwick
15 May 2018
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1. Brain Lotion
a. What does the clip reveal about postwar america?
i. Unemployment and depression in flint, and companies didn’t care
b. What are the issues highlighted in the clip and how might they relate to the social
organization of black communities?
i. “Continuous crisis”, black people been knew
2. The South & The Souths
a. Black American social life is best understood as occurring wholly in “the South”
i. Flint is north, chicago is north, the entire united states has the characteristics of
the Jim Crow South
b. Black migrants brought and bring ‘The South”
i. When you find a new place that is not the south (ex: flint), the problems of the
south find their way there (unemployment and poverty, etc.)
3. Finding Chocolate Cities
a. 3 distinct attributes:
b. The village: black density, a critical mass of black residents sharing and taking up space
c. The soul: the ability to project and serve as sites of historical and contemporary black
cultural production and dissemination
d. The power: headquarters of resistance and political mobilization in the black freedom
struggle
4. Dionne Warwick: “Do you know the way to San Jose” (1968)
a. The real danger of losing your way trying to find your way home
b. Safe passage for black travelers - “the green book/negro motorist guide”
c. San jose caviat: a house, a good income, an education can help you but doesn’t make
you free (expulsions, health, etc.)
d. A lot of lawsuits allow you to sue for racial discrimination or gender discrimination but not
both
e. Black women are evidence that we are not free, and that chocolate cities matter
f. The solutions are not what we think they, because san jose is not free
5. Takeaways
a. Black women are for the future
b. Black women remain key chocolate city travelers, pioneers, and advocates often
challenging the status quo, often losing their lives in the process
c. Chocolate cities are deeply connected (the context and conditions are consistent)
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