Description
Book SynopsisThe best-selling look at how American cities can promote racial equity, end redlining, and reverse the damaging health- and wealth-related effects of segregation. Winner of the IPPY Book Award Current Events II by the Independent PublisherThe world gasped in April 2015 as Baltimore erupted and Black Lives Matter activists, incensed by Freddie Gray's brutal death in police custody, shut down highways and marched on city streets. In The Black Butterflya reference to the fact that Baltimore's majority-Black population spreads out like a butterfly's wings on both sides of the coveted strip of real estate running down the center of the cityLawrence T. Brown reveals that ongoing historical trauma caused by a combination of policies, practices, systems, and budgets is at the root of uprisings and crises in hypersegregated cities around the country. Putting Baltimore under a microscope, Brown looks closely at the causes of segregation, many of which exist in current legislation and regulator
Trade ReviewA must-read book.
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The Real News NetworkThe Black Butterfly: The Harmful Politics of Race and Space in America is a complex book that will both intrigue and shock you. You will find yourself both grateful for his research and frustrated that it hasn't yet reached the right hands. It's not every day that a blueprint is created to directly address the issues of an urban city. This book is not only an eye-opener, but also a call to action, and a reminder of the work that needs to be done to heal a city with many open wounds.
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Baltimore FishbowlA provocative book.
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WYPR Midday with Tom HallWith clear and succinct writing, buttressed by rigorous research and copious examples, Dr. Brown casts an unflinching light on the problems Baltimore suffers as a hyper segregated city. Only when a critical mass of concerned citizens is made aware of the issues raised in this book, can change begin.
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Baltimore AIA NewsletterThe book provides a helpful tool for public affairs educators seeking to incorporate discussions of race into the classroom and steps to connect public administration theories of performance, budgeting, and management into a hands-on analysis of cities. It details a process to learn both about spatial inequity and to implement the next steps toward the remediation of historical trauma.
—Regina Lewis, Andrew Sullivan, University of Kentucky, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville,
Journal of Public Affairs EducationAn unsparing new geography of 'American apartheid'. [Brown] illuminates the process of 'spatial racism,' a force that has bound oppression up with the geography that African Americans occupy, and the public health effects of this historical trauma.
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Bloomberg CityLabA must-read for anyone who wants to understand the political and economic forces behind Baltimore's bifurcated white and Black neighborhoods, and the modern-day segregation at the center of so much of the city's inequity.
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Baltimore MagazineTable of ContentsIntroduction to Racial Equity
Track 1. The Trump Card
Track 2. This Is America
Track 3. The "Negro Invasion"
Track 4. Ongoing Historical Trauma
Track 5. Black Neighborhood Destruction
Track 6. Make Black Neighborhoods Matter
Track 7. Healing the Black Butterfly
Track 8. Outro: Organize!
Album Credits
Appendixes
Notes
Index
