Black Metropolis, Between Past and Future

The Fondation des Etats-Unis is pleased to welcome the international and multidisciplinary conference The Black Metropolis, between Past and Future: Race, Urban Planning and African-American Culture in Chicago on Friday, November 17. The conference will be followed by a concert by the Orchestre National de Jazz and Mike Reed.

Since the beginning of the 20th Century and particularly after the “Great Migration”, which peaked in 1917, Chicago has been considered the “Black Metropolis” of the United States of America. Chicago’s South Side and West Side are the two emblematic African-American neighborhoods of the Midwest’s largest city. These neighborhoods are always associated with negative images of the “Black Ghetto” for example, the setting and perpetuation of urban racial segregation, precarious living conditions, especially in terms of housing and jobs, and violence resulting from an illegal economy controlled by gangs.

However, if representation of the South Side and the West Side of Chicago was restricted to such depictions of the socio-economic and political difficulties of the African-American community, the portrait would not be complete. On the contrary, the “Black Metropolis” has always had a distinctly intense intellectual and artistic life. Chicago, alongside New York, has contributed more than any other American city to the rise and influence of African-American culture in the United States and its spreading to the rest of the world.

The international and multidisciplinary colloquium The Black Metropolis, between Past and Future: Race, Urban Planning and African-American Culture in Chicago seeks to reevaluate the contribution of the South Side and the West Side to the definition and evolution of the African-American identity from the beginning of the 20th Century until the contemporary moment. From November 15 to 18, the conference will take place in different locations in Paris : Sciences Po Paris, Université Denis Diderot, Fondation des États-Unis and the Université de Chicago Centre.

Please sign up by email : Arnaud Coulombel, acoulomb@uchicago.edu 

 

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