Chester | Resources and Statistics

History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and the neighboring counties of Pennsylvania by Smedley, R. C. Reprint of a significant primary source on the Underground Railroad Colorful information and anecdotes from the participants Originally published in 1883 and long out of print, this remarkable volume examines the Underground Railroad as it operated in southeastern Pennsylvania. Based on interviews with those directly involved in the escaped slave network, it tells the stories of freedom seekers, those who helped them, and the places they hid. A new introduction by Christopher Densmore places the book in its historical context and assesses the work in light of more recent scholarship.

Parallel Time : growing up in black and white by Staples, Brent The autobiographical story of an African American journalist, who made his way from poverty to a University of Chicago graduate degree and the editorial board of the New York Times.

Politics and Prejudice: small-town Blacks battle a corrupt system by Harris, Richard E. "Politics and Prejudice" tells the story of the Black population of Chester, Pennsylvania, starting with a few slaves in colonial times and ending with Chester as a majority-Black city in the 1980s. Author Richard Harris was eye-witness to many of the dramatic events of the struggle for equality during the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, when Chester was in the national spotlight. Those events are vividly described, as are the many ways the repressive Republican political machine sought to suppress and manipulate Chesters Blacks.

Race and the Politics of Deception by Christopher Mele What is the relationship between race and space, and how do racial politics inform the organization and development of urban locales? In Race and the Politics of Deception, Christopher Mele unpacks America's history of dealing with racial problems through the inequitable use of public space. Mele focuses on Chester, Pennsylvania--a small city comprised of primarily low-income, black residents, roughly twenty miles south of Philadelphia. Like many cities throughout the United States, Chester is experiencing post-industrial decline. A development plan touted as a way to "save" the city, proposes to turn one section into a desirable waterfront destination, while leaving the rest of the struggling residents in fractured communities. Dividing the city into spaces of tourism and consumption versus the everyday spaces of low-income residents, Mele argues, segregates the community by creating a racialized divide. While these development plans are described as socially inclusive and economically revitalizing, Mele asserts that political leaders and real estate developers intentionally exclude certain types of people--most often, low-income people of color. Race and the Politics of Deception provides a revealing look at how our ever-changing landscape is being strategically divided along lines of class and race.

Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania by Switala, Wiliam J. Revised and expanded with recently uncovered information Detailed maps of escape routes and networks Eyewitness accounts of fugitives Organized in antebellum America to help slaves escape to freedom, the Underground Railroad was cloaked in secrecy and operated at great peril to everyone involved. The system was extremely active in Pennsylvania, with routes running through cities and towns in all parts of the state. This revised second edition retraces the routes with detailed maps, discusses the large city networks, identifies the houses and sites where escapees found refuge, and records the names of the people who risked their lives to support the operation.

Don't Burn It Here: Grassroots challenges to trash incinerators by Walsh, Edward J., Warland, Rex & Smith, D. Clayton When first proposed in this country during the 1970s, waste-to-energy (WTE) incinerators appeared to be ideal solutions to the growing mounds of trash in our "throw-away" society. Promising to convert useless garbage into electricity while saving precious landfill space, trash incinerators seemed perfectly timed to respond to a national need. Within a decade, however, a grassroots anti-incineration movement emerged as a vibrant offshoot of the environmental movement. In Don't Burn It Here, sociologists Edward Walsh, Rex Warland, and D. Clayton Smith examine this grassroots movement through detailed analyses of the struggles surrounding proposals to build eight municipal incinerators in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. The eight case histories that form the heart of the book are comparable to hundreds of others across the U.S. The authors' research is based on interviews, focus group discussions, extensive newspaper files, and questionnaire responses from participants on both sides of the conflicts. A final chapter examines the similarities and differences between the three successful projects and the five defeated ones. An overview of the history of the modern incinerator in the U.S. and the emergence of a major national opposition movement provides the necessary context, and throughout the book, the authors make useful comparisons to other national movements seeking legal justice for deprived collectivities such as women and ethnic groups. This project was supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation's Fund for Research in Dispute Resolution. Striving to maintain a balanced treatment of both sides of the incinerator battles, the authors provide fresh theoretical and methodological perspectives on a new type of collective action. They also help to close the gap between theory and empirical data in the social sciences.

An examination of an urban school system prior to and subsequent to Brown et. al. V. the Topeka Board of Education through the eyes of its stakeholders by Lewis-West, Patricia C.

Ruling Suburbia: John J. McClure and the Republican machine in Delaware County, Pennsylvania by McLarnon, John Morrison Ruling Suburbia chronicles the history of the Republican machine that has dominated the political life of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, since 1875, and of the career of John J. McClure, who controlled the machine from 1907 until 1965.