Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family

Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family

Down the Up Staircase tells the story of one Harlem family across three generations, connecting its journey to the historical and social forces that transformed Harlem over the past century. Bruce D. Haynes and Syma Solovitch capture the tides of change that pushed blacks forward through the twentieth centuryâ€•the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, the early civil rights victories, the Black Power and Black Arts movementsâ€•as well as the many forces that ravaged black communities, including Haynes's own. As an authority on race and urban communities, Haynes brings unique sociological insights to the American mobility saga and the tenuous nature of status and success among the black middle class.

In many ways, Haynes's family defied the odds. All four great-grandparents on his father's side owned land in the South as early as 1880. His grandfather, George Edmund Haynes, was the founder of the National Urban League and a protÃ©gÃ© of eminent black sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois; his grandmother, Elizabeth Ross Haynes, was a noted children's author of the Harlem Renaissance and a prominent social scientist. Yet these early advances and gains provided little anchor to the succeeding generations. This story is told against the backdrop of a crumbling three-story brownstone in Sugar Hill that once hosted Harlem Renaissance elites and later became an embodiment of the family's rise and demise. Down the Up Staircase is a stirring portrait of this family, each generation walking a tightrope, one misstep from free fall.
Country USA
Brand Columbia University Press
Manufacturer Columbia University Press
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber 9780231181020
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780231181020
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	Columbia University Press
Manufacturer	Columbia University Press
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	9780231181020
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780231181020
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family

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