CBH Talk | Joining the Clubs: Inside the Ethnic Power Centers of 1960s Brooklyn Politics
In 1960s and 70s Brooklyn, the borough's political clubs were the temples of political power. Decisions made in those halls reshaped the borough’s political structures in ways that cleaved along racial and ethnic lines, specifically Irish, Jewish, and Black. Perceived threats became strategic futures. Pragmatic leaders reached across racial and ethnic lines. And successions were anointed and withheld based on practical changes in the borough’s electorate. This history is captured in dozens of interviews conducted by political scientist Jeffrey Gerson, which are now part of the Center for Brooklyn History archives.
Join us as we delve into the dynamics of 1960s and 70s Kings County politics: the changing coalitions between Irish, Jewish and Black leaders; the brokers, machine politicians, beneficiaries, those who came up through the political club system who were left behind; and how these political processes and power dynamics have evolved today. Highlights of recordings Gerson made in the 1990s will be followed by a panel discussion with three leading experts: political scientist John Mollenkopf, historian Brian Purnell, and writer and academic Ron Howell. The program is moderated by Jarrett Murphy, former executive editor of City Limits.
Pictured above: cassette audio tapes from the Jeffrey Gerson Brooklyn politics research collection
Participants
Jeffrey N. Gerson was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Canarsie. He earned his BS in Political Science from the State University of New York at Brockport in 1978 and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the CUNY Graduate Center in 1990. The research materials for dissertation, “Building the Brooklyn Machine: Irish, Jewish and Black Political Succession in Central Brooklyn,” were accessioned by the Brooklyn Historical Society in 2014. Gerson has taught political science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell for 33 years, at first focusing on ethnic and racial politics in the mill cities of Lowell and Lawrence, Massachusetts, and then shifting his courses and research attention for the last two decades to the politics of popular culture, mainly sports, film and music.
Ron Howell is an academic and journalist. He most recently served on the faculty of Brooklyn College where he taught English composition and journalism. He is the author of three books: Boss of Black Brooklyn: The Life and Times of Bertram L Baker (Fordham University Press); King Al: How Sharpton Took the Throne (Fordham University Press); and One Hundred Jobs: A Panorama of Work in the American City (The New Press), and has published extensively on topics ranging from the gentrification of Bedford-Stuyvesant to life in Cuba under Fidel Castro to the Latino and Arab immigrant communities in New York City.
Howell grew up in the Bed-Stuy brownstone home of his maternal grandfather, Bertram L. Baker, a 1915 immigrant from the then-British island of Nevis in the Caribbean. In 1948, Baker was elected to the New York State Assembly representing Bed-Stuy, thus becoming the first Black ever elected to political office in Brooklyn. Howell's biography of Baker includes revelations of the sexism that caused pain in and beyond Baker's family.
Howell received his BA in history from Yale University and M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Since his 2022 retirement from Brooklyn College, he has been working on a memoir which includes his family's history. He remains in possession of his maternal grandparents' copious archival materials.
John Mollenkopf is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center and directs its Center for Urban Research. His eighteen books (authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited) analyze the impacts of race, ethnicity, and immigration on urban politics and urban policy with a focus on New York City as a laboratory for change.
Having received his PhD at Harvard University, he began his academic career teaching urban studies and public policy at Stanford University and studying pro-growth coalitions and their opponents. Upon moving to New York City he joined the Graduate Center in 1981. His subsequent scholarship has focused on New York City politics in comparative perspective and on understanding the political, social, and economic integration of immigrants into urban settings in the U.S. and Europe. Among his noteworthy books are Phoenix in the Ashes (Princeton University Press, 1991), a study of the rise and fall of the Koch coalition and its implications for city policy-making and Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age (Russell Sage Foundation, 2009), co-authored with Philip Kasinitz, Mary Waters, and Jennifer Holdaway, which won the 2010 Distinguished Book Award from the American Sociological Association. His current book project explores how the rise of new immigrant-origin communities has reshaped New York City electoral politics since 2001.
Mollenkopf has been a consultant or advisor to many city agencies, including the Charter Revision Commissions of 1989-1991 that reformed city governance and the subsequent Redistricting Commissions that drew and redrew city council lines that have resulted in the most diverse legislative body in the city’s history.
Jarrett Murphy is a freelance journalist and registered nurse. He previously worked at the Hartford Advocate, CBS News, the Village Voice, and City Limits, where he was executive editor for a decade. He is the former co-host of "The Max & Murphy" show on WBAI radio and "Straight Up" on BRIC-TV, and his work has appeared on WNYC and in the Nation, the Trace, Columbia Journalism Review, Newsday and the Daily News. He now works the night shift in a Manhattan emergency room, and lives in the Bronx with his wife and two sons.
Brian Purnell is a historian who writes about the history of Black people and communities in New York City as well as the history of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in the United States. He was born and raised in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, attended Catholic schools in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx from first grade through college, and earned a PhD in History at New York University. Purnell was the lead historian for the Center for Brooklyn History's inaugural public history exhibit, Brooklyn Resists; and he is the author of Fighting Jim Crow in the County of Kings: The Congress of Racial Equality in Brooklyn; the co-editor of The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle Outside of the South; and the writer and narrator of History of Brooklyn, produced by The Great Courses and available through the Amazon Audible streaming service. He is writing two books: one about the life and activism of Jitu Weusi, Brooklyn's Black Power educator, and one that covers the history of Black culture and communities in New York City from 1626 to the present. He is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.
In 1960s and 70s Brooklyn, the borough's political clubs were the temples of political power. Decisions made in those halls reshaped the borough’s political structures in ways that cleaved along racial and ethnic lines, specifically Irish, Jewish, and Black. Perceived threats became strategic futures. Pragmatic leaders reached across racial and ethnic lines. And successions were anointed and withheld based on practical changes in the borough’s electorate. This history is captured in dozens of interviews conducted by political scientist Jeffrey Gerson, which are now part of the Center for Brooklyn History archives.
Join us as we delve into the dynamics of 1960s and 70s Kings County politics: the changing coalitions between Irish, Jewish and Black leaders; the brokers, machine politicians, beneficiaries, those who came up through the political club system who were left behind; and how these political processes and power dynamics have evolved today. Highlights of recordings Gerson made in the 1990s will be followed by a panel discussion with three leading experts: political scientist John Mollenkopf, historian Brian Purnell, and writer and academic Ron Howell. The program is moderated by Jarrett Murphy, former executive editor of City Limits.
Pictured above: cassette audio tapes from the Jeffrey Gerson Brooklyn politics research collection
Participants
Jeffrey N. Gerson was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Canarsie. He earned his BS in Political Science from the State University of New York at Brockport in 1978 and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the CUNY Graduate Center in 1990. The research materials for dissertation, “Building the Brooklyn Machine: Irish, Jewish and Black Political Succession in Central Brooklyn,” were accessioned by the Brooklyn Historical Society in 2014. Gerson has taught political science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell for 33 years, at first focusing on ethnic and racial politics in the mill cities of Lowell and Lawrence, Massachusetts, and then shifting his courses and research attention for the last two decades to the politics of popular culture, mainly sports, film and music.
Ron Howell is an academic and journalist. He most recently served on the faculty of Brooklyn College where he taught English composition and journalism. He is the author of three books: Boss of Black Brooklyn: The Life and Times of Bertram L Baker (Fordham University Press); King Al: How Sharpton Took the Throne (Fordham University Press); and One Hundred Jobs: A Panorama of Work in the American City (The New Press), and has published extensively on topics ranging from the gentrification of Bedford-Stuyvesant to life in Cuba under Fidel Castro to the Latino and Arab immigrant communities in New York City.
Howell grew up in the Bed-Stuy brownstone home of his maternal grandfather, Bertram L. Baker, a 1915 immigrant from the then-British island of Nevis in the Caribbean. In 1948, Baker was elected to the New York State Assembly representing Bed-Stuy, thus becoming the first Black ever elected to political office in Brooklyn. Howell's biography of Baker includes revelations of the sexism that caused pain in and beyond Baker's family.
Howell received his BA in history from Yale University and M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Since his 2022 retirement from Brooklyn College, he has been working on a memoir which includes his family's history. He remains in possession of his maternal grandparents' copious archival materials.
John Mollenkopf is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center and directs its Center for Urban Research. His eighteen books (authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited) analyze the impacts of race, ethnicity, and immigration on urban politics and urban policy with a focus on New York City as a laboratory for change.
Having received his PhD at Harvard University, he began his academic career teaching urban studies and public policy at Stanford University and studying pro-growth coalitions and their opponents. Upon moving to New York City he joined the Graduate Center in 1981. His subsequent scholarship has focused on New York City politics in comparative perspective and on understanding the political, social, and economic integration of immigrants into urban settings in the U.S. and Europe. Among his noteworthy books are Phoenix in the Ashes (Princeton University Press, 1991), a study of the rise and fall of the Koch coalition and its implications for city policy-making and Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age (Russell Sage Foundation, 2009), co-authored with Philip Kasinitz, Mary Waters, and Jennifer Holdaway, which won the 2010 Distinguished Book Award from the American Sociological Association. His current book project explores how the rise of new immigrant-origin communities has reshaped New York City electoral politics since 2001.
Mollenkopf has been a consultant or advisor to many city agencies, including the Charter Revision Commissions of 1989-1991 that reformed city governance and the subsequent Redistricting Commissions that drew and redrew city council lines that have resulted in the most diverse legislative body in the city’s history.
Jarrett Murphy is a freelance journalist and registered nurse. He previously worked at the Hartford Advocate, CBS News, the Village Voice, and City Limits, where he was executive editor for a decade. He is the former co-host of "The Max & Murphy" show on WBAI radio and "Straight Up" on BRIC-TV, and his work has appeared on WNYC and in the Nation, the Trace, Columbia Journalism Review, Newsday and the Daily News. He now works the night shift in a Manhattan emergency room, and lives in the Bronx with his wife and two sons.
Brian Purnell is a historian who writes about the history of Black people and communities in New York City as well as the history of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in the United States. He was born and raised in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, attended Catholic schools in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx from first grade through college, and earned a PhD in History at New York University. Purnell was the lead historian for the Center for Brooklyn History's inaugural public history exhibit, Brooklyn Resists; and he is the author of Fighting Jim Crow in the County of Kings: The Congress of Racial Equality in Brooklyn; the co-editor of The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle Outside of the South; and the writer and narrator of History of Brooklyn, produced by The Great Courses and available through the Amazon Audible streaming service. He is writing two books: one about the life and activism of Jitu Weusi, Brooklyn's Black Power educator, and one that covers the history of Black culture and communities in New York City from 1626 to the present. He is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.
Brooklyn Public Library - Center for Brooklyn History MM/DD/YYYY 60