Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Families in the Gautreaux Housing Mobility Program: Perceptions and Responses to the U.S. Political Economy

  • Published:
The Review of Black Political Economy

Abstract

This study examines how perceptions of shifts in the U.S. political economy such as those associated with the Great Migration(s), the Civil Rights Movement, and various housing policies influenced the lives of three generations of African American families and children. This study looks at the experiences of families living in Chicago, Illinois who participated in the Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program, which was a direct result of the Civil Rights Movement. A qualitative analysis is employed that analyzes the perceptions of Gautreaux participants (N = 25) about how changes in the U.S. political economy affect their life course development and the life courses of their parents (N = 50) and children (N = 72). Added to the perceptions of Gautreaux participants is an intergenerational analysis of educational achievement and occupational attainment in the context of a changing U.S. political economy from the Jim Crow era to the post-Civil Rights era. The findings suggest that in many cases participants perceived expanding opportunities but also recognized the persistence of structural constraints. They identified several structural changes that they believed influenced their families’ educational and occupational opportunities: industrial jobs in the North, civil rights protests by African Americans against employment and housing discrimination (and the resulting policies like “affirmative action”), as well as increased government funding for job training and education. The intergenerational analysis of educational and occupational achievement revealed that each Gautreaux generation has higher rates of college attendance and post-high school training, as well as a greater range of occupations. I argue that the interplay between changing structural forces and bundled acts of resistance over the three generations created pathways that significantly improved life course development within and across the generations.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. For a detailed discussion of key shifts in the U.S. political economy and their implications, see Headlee (2005).

  2. The OFCCP monitored hiring and promotion of African Americans by federal contractors.

  3. A 1981 provision in the Gautreaux court ruling allowed the Leadership Council to place families in neighborhoods that had more than 30% Black residents as long as they could demonstrate that it was a revitalizing community (Rubinowitz and Rosenbaum 2000). A neighborhood was considered revitalizing if there was enough development activity underway or planned so that economic integration was likely in the short run and racial integration might follow in the long run.

  4. Rubinowitz and Rosenbaum (2000) report 6,000 families moved through the Gautreaux program and the “rest of the 7,100 families specified in the consent decree were assisted through other initiatives” (pp. 67–68).

  5. 1990 was used as a cut off because after that time it appears that families found housing primarily on their own (Rubinowitz and Rosenbaum 2000).

  6. This was an attempt to control for cohort effects. Two exceptions to the 1951 birth cohort are women born in 1947 and 1950.

  7. Economist William Darity, in a special issue of Daedalus devoted to Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma, observed that “For Myrdal the explanatory core of An American Dilemma lay in what he called ‘the “principle of cumulation,” also commonly called the “vicious circle”,’ an analytical scheme drawn from physics which Myrdal felt had potential for wide application in the social sciences. The ‘vicious circle’ refers to the downward (negative) spiral precipitated by the adverse effects of White prejudice and associated limitations on Black workplace opportunities…. This theoretical approach leaves the door open for the emergence of an alternative path, a virtuous circle of improvement for Blacks.” Cf. Darity (1995:146–47).

  8. In addition to farm work, other occupations held by these members of the first generation early in their life courses included driving log trucks, going into the Army, doing in domestic work, and being a homemaker.

  9. In describing the unprecedented migration of African Americans from the Jim Crow South in the “brief period of 3 years following the outbreak of the great war in Europe,” in which “more than four hundred thousand negroes suddenly moved north,” early Black social scientist Emmett J. Scott noted that despite its unprecedented character the great migration then underway “bears such a significant resemblance to Kansas in 1879 and the one to Arkansas and Texas in 1888 and 1889 that this of 1916–1917 may be regarded as the same movement with intervals of a number of years” (Scott 1920: 3). The post-World War II Black migration may, as Scott observed, be “regarded as the same movement” with the addition of subsequent “intervals of a number of years.” See Scott (1920).

  10. All but one parent with advanced training migrated to Chicago as young adults.

  11. Black social anthropologist and co-author of Black Metropolis, St. Clair Drake, noted of the class structure of the “ghettoization of Negro life” formed by these labor market shifts: “Although, in Marxian terms, nearly all of [the inhabitants of the Black ghetto] are ‘proletarian,’ with nothing to sell but their labor, variations in ‘life style’ differentiate them into social classes based more upon differences in education and basic values (crystallized, in part, around occupational differences) than in meaningful differences in income.” Cf. Drake (1968b).

  12. For additional information about the early years of public housing see Fuerst (2005).

  13. Again, St. Clair Drake’s insights into this period are incisive: “Marxist critics would dismiss the whole configuration of Negro folkways and classways as a subculture which reinforces ‘false consciousness,’ which prevents Negroes from facing the full extent of their victimization, which keeps them from ever focusing upon what they could be because they are so busy enjoying what they are—or rationalizing their subordination and exclusion. Gunnar Myrdal, in An American Dilemma, goes so far as to refer to the Negro community as a ‘pathological’ growth within American society. Some novelists and poets, on the other hand, romanticize it, and some Black Nationalists glorify it. A sober analysis of the Civil Rights Movement would suggest, however, that the striking fact about all levels of the Negro community is the absence of ‘false consciousness,’ and the presence of a keen awareness of the extent of their victimization, as well as knowledge of the forces which maintain it. Not lack of knowledge but a sense of powerlessness is the key to the Negro reaction to the caste-class system.” Drake (1968a).

  14. About one quarter of participants in this group are also in the previous group.

References

  • Ahmed HA. The political economy of race and its role in the development of public housing in south St. Petersburg: The case of Jordan Park. Review of Black Political Economy. 2004;31:43–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alkalimat A. and associates. Paradigms in black studies. Chicago: Twenty-first century books and publications; 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  • Appelhans B, Black C. The Chicago freedom movement: Summer 1966. Weekly World Newspaper, January 19; 2002.

  • Blank R. It takes a nation: A new agenda for fighting poverty. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bronfenbrenner U. Developmental ecology through space and time: A future perspective. In: Moen P, Elder G, Lüscher K, editors. Examining lives in context: Perspectives on the ecology of human development. Washington: American Psychological Association; 1995. p. 619–48.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Brown H. What is Gautreaux? Business and Professional People for the Public Interest; 1991.

  • Browne I. Latinas and African American women at work: Race, gender, and economic inequality. New York: Sage; 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  • Creswell JW. Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage; 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  • Darity W. The undesirables, America’s underclass in the managerial age: beyond the Myrdal theory of racial inequality. Daedalus. 1995;124:145–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Leeuw MB, Whyte MK, Ho D, Meza C, Karteron A, of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP. Residential segregation and housing discrimination in the United States: Violations of the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. A response to the 2007 periodic report of the United States of American submitted by housing scholars and research and advocacy organizations; 2007.

  • Dougherty KJ. The contradictory college: The conflict origins, impacts, and futures of the community college. Albany: State University of New York Press; 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drake C St. The Ghettoization of Negro life. in Negroes and Jobs (p. 121); 1968a.

  • St. Drake C. The ghettoization of Negro life. In: Ferman LA, Kornbluh JL, Miller JA, editors. Negroes and jobs: A book of readings. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; 1968b. p. 117.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunayevskaya R. Raya Dunayevskaya collection. Wayne State University archives of labor and urban affairs. Detroit: Wayne State University; 1944.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duncan GJ, Raudenbush SW. Neighborhoods and adolescent development: How can we determine the links? In: Booth A, Crouter JC, editors. Does it take a village? Community effects on children, adolescents, and families. Mahwah: Erlbaum; 2001. p. 105–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elder GH. The life course as developmental theory. Child Development. 1998;69(1):1–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Featherman DLH, Hauser RM. Changes in the socioeconomic stratification of the race, 1962–1973. American Journal of Sociology. 1976;82:621–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flanagan RJ. Actual versus potential impact of government antidiscrimination programs. Industrial and Labor Relations Review. 1976;29:486–507.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fosu AK. Occupational mobility of black women, 1958–1981: the impact of post-1964 antidiscrimination measures. Industrial and Labor Relations Review. 1992;45:281–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fuerst JS. When public housing was paradise. Chicago: University of Illinois Press; 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gates HL. The classic slave narratives. London: Penguin Books; 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gould M. Race and theory: culture, poverty, and adaptation to discrimination in Wilson and Ogbu. Sociological Theory. 1999;17:171–200.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hagestad GO. Trends and dilemmas in life course research: an international perspective. In: Heinz WR, editor. Theoretical advances in life course research. Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag; 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Headlee S. Income and wealth transfer effects of discrimination in employment. The Review of Black Political Economy. 2005;32:39–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heckman JJ, Payner BS. Determining the impact of federal antidiscrimination policy on the economic status of blacks: a study of South Carolina. American Economic Review. 1989;79:138–77.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heinz WR, Krüger H. Life course: innovations and challenges for social research. Current Sociology. 2001;49:29–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hine DC. Black women in America: An historical encyclopedia. New York: Carlson; 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hout M. Occupational mobility of black men: 1962 to 1973. American Sociological Review. 1984;49:308–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keels M. The effects of neighborhoods: Residential mobility and long-term child outcomes. Unpublished Dissertation. Evanston: Northwestern University; 2005.

  • Keels, M., Duncan, G.J., DeLuca, S., Mendenhall, R., Rosenbaum, J.E. Fifteen years later: Can residential mobility programs provide a permanent escape from neighborhood segregation, crime, and poverty? Demography. 2005;42:51–73.

  • Landry B. Black working wives: Pioneers of the American family revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press; 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • Larson T. The effect of discrimination and segregation on black male migration. Review of Black Political Economy. 1992;20:53–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leonard JS. Employment and occupational advance under affirmative action. Review of Economics and Statistics. 1984;66:377–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lundberg S, Starz R. On the persistence of racial inequality. Journal of Labor Economics. 1998;16:292–323.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marger MN. Social inequality: Patterns and processes. London: Mayfield; 1999/2008.

  • Massey DS, Denton NA. American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the underclass. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • McAdam D. Political process and the development of Black insurgency, 1930–1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1982.

    Google Scholar 

  • Medoff MH. Discrimination and occupational progress of Blacks since 1950. American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 1985;44:295–304.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mendenhall, R. Black women in Gautreaux’s housing desegregation program: The role of neighborhoods and networks in economic independence. Unpublished Dissertation. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University; 2004.

  • Mendenhall, R., Duncan, G.J., and DeLuca, S. A. Neighborhood resources, racial segregation, and economic mobility: Results from the Gautreaux program. Social Science Research. 2006;35:892–923.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nishina A, Juvonen J. Daily reports of witnessing and experiencing peer harassment in middle school. Child Development. 2005;76:435–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Rand A. Stratification and the life course: The forms of life-course capital and their interrelationship. In: Binstock RH, George LK, editors. Handbook of aging and the social sciences. New York: Academic; 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Orr L, Feins JD, Jacob R, Beecroft E, Sanbonmatsu L, Katz LF, et al. Moving to opportunity interim impacts evaluation. National Bureau of Economic Research; 2003.

  • Pattillo-McCoy M. Black picket fences: Privilege and peril among the black middle class. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peake LJ. Toward an understanding of the interconnectedness of women’s lives: the “racial” reproduction of labor in low-income urban areas. Urban Geography. 1995;16:414–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polikoff A. Waiting for Gautreaux: A story of segregation, housing, and the black ghetto. Evanston: Northwestern University Press; 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popkin SJ, Rosenbaum JE, Meaden PM. Labor market experiences of low-income black women in middle-class suburbs: evidence from a survey of Gautreaux program participants. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. 1993;12:556–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pratt G. Feminist analyses of the restructuring of urban life. Urban Geography. 1990;11:594–604.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosenbaum JE, DeLuca S. Is housing mobility the key to welfare reform? Lessons from Chicago’s Gautreaux program. Washington: Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy Survey Series; 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rubinowitz LS, Rosenbaum JE. Crossing the class and color lines: From public housing to white suburbia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott EJ. Negro migration during the war. New York: Arno; 1920. 1969.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tolnay S. The African American “Great Migration” and beyond. Annual Review of Sociology. 2003;29:209–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Census Bureau. Census 2000 Summary Files; 2000.

  • Williams RY. The politics of public housing: Black women’s struggle against urban inequality. New York: Oxford University Press; 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson WJ. The declining significance of race. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson WJ. The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the underclass, and public policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yinger J. Closed doors, opportunities lost. New York: Sage; 1995.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgement

The author thankfully acknowledges support from the McCormick Tribune Foundation and the UIUC Center for Advance Study. The author would also like to thank Micere Keels, Greg J. Duncan, James E. Rosenbaum, Lou Turner, Mary Hess, and Jennifer Hamer for their assistance with this manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Sociology and African American Studies, University of Illinois, 702 S. Wright Ave, MC 454, Urbana-Champaign, IL, 61801, USA

    Ruby Mendenhall

Authors
  1. Ruby Mendenhall
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ruby Mendenhall.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Qualitative and quantitative sample comparisons

Sample

Sample

AFDC

Employment

N = 25

N = 793

N = 1258

On AFDC at time of move

80%

74%

69%

Percent time on AFDC between 1990–1992

46%

36%

NA

Percent time employed between 1995–1999

53%

NA

43%

High Black (75–100%) city neighborhoods

16%

22%

22%

Low Black (0–30%) City neighborhoods

24%

26%

27%

Low Black (0–30%) suburban neighborhoods

60%

44%

43%

Appendix 2

Women’s educational attainment

Educational attainment

Qualitative sample, 2003

U.S. women 45–60 Years, 2000

Percent, 25 years and over

Less than a high school diploma

12%

11%

High school graduates/GED, no college

8%

31%

Some college/training (at least 1 yr.) or AA degree

a76%

22%

College graduates

4%

14%

  1. U.S. Census Bureau 2000
  2. aSeven of the nineteen women in this group were teen parents.

Appendix 3

Lower middle-class gautreaux participants

Occupation

Income

Education

Director of human resources

$72,000

Clerical certificate

Personal care assistant, millionaire client

$64,800

Associate degree

Realtor, landlord, and property manager

$60,000

2 years college, 4 certificates

Supervisor, data center

$60,000

1 year college

Manager, adult dialysis center

$60,112

Registered nurse

Personal care assistant, for two registries

$41,000

Massage therapy certificate

Business coordinator, telephone company

$41,000

GED

Administrative assistant, bank

$40,000

1 year college & clerical certificate

Surgical tech nurse

$36,000

2 certificates in nursing

  1. The criteria used by Marger (1999/2008) for lower middle-class income is $37,793–$80,985 (2002 dollars). For education, it is at least a high school degree and often college.
  2. Occupations include lower-level managers, semiprofessionals, small business owners, and craftspersons. Each participant in this category meets at least two of the three criteria.

About this article

Cite this article

Mendenhall, R. Families in the Gautreaux Housing Mobility Program: Perceptions and Responses to the U.S. Political Economy. Rev Black Polit Econ 36, 197–226 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12114-009-9047-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12114-009-9047-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation