White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001
From the nineteenth century until today, the power brokers of Dallas have always portrayed their city as a progressive, pro-business, racially harmonious community that has avoided the racial, ethnic, and class strife that roiled other Southern cities. But does this image of Dallas match the historical reality? In this book, Michael Phillips delves deeply into Dallas's racial and religious past and uncovers a complicated history of resistance, collaboration, and assimilation between the city's African American, Mexican American, and Jewish communities and its white power elite.
Exploring more than 150 years of Dallas history, Phillips reveals how white business leaders created both a white racial identity and a Southwestern regional identity that excluded African Americans from power and required Mexican Americans and Jews to adopt Anglo-Saxon norms to achieve what limited positions of power they held. He also demonstrates how the concept of whiteness kept these groups from allying with each other, and with working- and middle-class whites, to build a greater power base and end elite control of the city. Comparing the Dallas racial experience with that of Houston and Atlanta, Phillips identifies how Dallas fits into regional patterns of race relations and illuminates the unique forces that have kept its racial history hidden until the publication of this book.
1101995825
White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001
From the nineteenth century until today, the power brokers of Dallas have always portrayed their city as a progressive, pro-business, racially harmonious community that has avoided the racial, ethnic, and class strife that roiled other Southern cities. But does this image of Dallas match the historical reality? In this book, Michael Phillips delves deeply into Dallas's racial and religious past and uncovers a complicated history of resistance, collaboration, and assimilation between the city's African American, Mexican American, and Jewish communities and its white power elite.
Exploring more than 150 years of Dallas history, Phillips reveals how white business leaders created both a white racial identity and a Southwestern regional identity that excluded African Americans from power and required Mexican Americans and Jews to adopt Anglo-Saxon norms to achieve what limited positions of power they held. He also demonstrates how the concept of whiteness kept these groups from allying with each other, and with working- and middle-class whites, to build a greater power base and end elite control of the city. Comparing the Dallas racial experience with that of Houston and Atlanta, Phillips identifies how Dallas fits into regional patterns of race relations and illuminates the unique forces that have kept its racial history hidden until the publication of this book.
30.0 In Stock
White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001

White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001

by Michael Phillips
White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001

White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001

by Michael Phillips

eBook

$30.00 

Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers

LEND ME® See Details

Overview

From the nineteenth century until today, the power brokers of Dallas have always portrayed their city as a progressive, pro-business, racially harmonious community that has avoided the racial, ethnic, and class strife that roiled other Southern cities. But does this image of Dallas match the historical reality? In this book, Michael Phillips delves deeply into Dallas's racial and religious past and uncovers a complicated history of resistance, collaboration, and assimilation between the city's African American, Mexican American, and Jewish communities and its white power elite.
Exploring more than 150 years of Dallas history, Phillips reveals how white business leaders created both a white racial identity and a Southwestern regional identity that excluded African Americans from power and required Mexican Americans and Jews to adopt Anglo-Saxon norms to achieve what limited positions of power they held. He also demonstrates how the concept of whiteness kept these groups from allying with each other, and with working- and middle-class whites, to build a greater power base and end elite control of the city. Comparing the Dallas racial experience with that of Houston and Atlanta, Phillips identifies how Dallas fits into regional patterns of race relations and illuminates the unique forces that have kept its racial history hidden until the publication of this book.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780292774247
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Publication date: 01/01/2010
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
File size: 4 MB

About the Author

MICHAEL PHILLIPS is a researcher at the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned his Ph.D. in 2002.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Prologue: Through a Glass Darkly: Memory, Race, and Region in Dallas, Texas
1. The Music of Cracking Necks: Dallas Civilization and Its Discontents
2. True to Dixie and to Moses: Yankees, White Trash, Jews, and the Lost Cause
3. The Great White Plague: Whiteness, Culture, and the Unmaking of the Dallas Working Class
4. Consequences of Powerlessness: Whiteness as Class Politics
5. Water Force: Resisting White Supremacy under Jim Crow
6. White Like Me: Mexican Americans, Jews, and the Elusive Politics of Identity
7. A Blight and a Sin: Segregation, the Kennedy Assassination, and the Wreckage of Whiteness Afterword Notes Bibliography Index

What People are Saying About This

Benjamin Heber Johnson

"This is an important contribution to the study of race relations, Texas history, southern history, and Jewish history. . . . As Phillips persuasively argues, Dallas is almost absurdly understudied."

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews