Kimberley S. Johnson, Dark Concrete: Black Power Urbanism and the American Metropolis, 24.04.2025, 5pm-7pm CEST
Zoom* & Sciences Po, 13 rue de l’Université, 75007 Paris
Presentation of the upcoming book “Dark Concrete: Black Power Urbanism and the American Metropolis“
Dark Concrete is about how the Black Power movement re-shaped urban politics in the US – from expectations to practices. While the national and international dimensions of the Black Power are often focused on, Kimberley Johnson looks at the movement at the local level, highlighting Newark, East Orange, Oakland, and East Palo Alto and three policy areas: housing, education, and policing. She examines how the Black Power Urbanism movement had its own local meanings as it was defined by local activists, neighborhood residents, parents, tenants and others who sought to repair cities and particularly black neighborhoods that were shattered due to urban renewal and highway construction, as well as ongoing political and economic disinvestment. Dark Concrete depicts how local conditions shaped the emergence of the Black Power Urbanism movement, and in turn, the ways in which these local movements reshaped urban politics, institutions and place.
Speaker:
Kimberley Johnson is a Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University (NYU). Professor Johnson’s research interests include American political development, Congress and the bureaucracy, race and ethnic politics,and urban studies. She has published extensively on topics such as bureaucratic growth, urban and local politics, urban spatial development, and the development of the modern American state. Johnson has been recognized for her contributions to scholarship and practice, including the Tow Distinguished Professorship for Scholarship and Practitioners, the EBH Chair in Urban Studies and Political Science at Barnard College. Johnson has received grants and fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the NEH, and the Mellon Foundation. Johnson is currently the John G. Winant Visiting Professor of American Government, Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford. Johnson’s book publications include Governing the American State (Princeton University Press 2007); Reforming Jim Crow (Oxford University Press, 2010); and Dark Concrete: Black Power Urbanism and the American Metropolis (Cornell University Press, forthcoming, December 2025).
Discussant: Patrick Le Galès, CNRS Research director and Professor, CEE, Sciences Po
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