Power, Community, and Racial Killing in East St. Louis [Hardcover]

Malcolm McLaughlin's work presents a detailed analysis of the East St. Louis race riot in 1917, offering new insights into the construction of white identity and racism. He illuminates the world of East St Louis , life in its factories and neighborhoods, its popular culture, and City Hall politics, to place the race riot in the context of the city's urban development.Introduction * Part One: East St. Louis and Its World * East St. Louis Transformed: The Emergence of an Industrial City * The Structure of Power * Popular Culture, Race, and Violence * Part Two: Race Riot * Race Riot: The Conjuncture *Anatomy of the Killing * Hot Lead from the Race Quarters : Black East St. Louis and Self-Defense * Conclusion * Epilogue * Bibliography

This is a book that I have been waiting for someone to write for years - it fills a gaping hole in the scholarship on riots, class, and race in the progressive era. McLaughlin's book is important history. It's also important social policy and it should occupy an important place in the reparations debate, as we hear more about lawsuits and political action for victims of Jim Crow era violence. - Alfred L. Brophy, Professor of Law, University of Alabama and author of Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Riot of 1921 and Reparations

This is a worthwhile contribution to the study of collective violence and should be read by those interested in social history and American studies. - James N. Upton, Ohio State University

Malcolm McLaughlin is Lecturer in American Studies at the University of East Anglia, in Great Britain. This is his first book.