Suchergebnisse

Issues of race, class, & gender are investigated in the context of a historical review of the ascent of African-American presence on the Richmond, VA, city council in the 1970s, & its subsequent decline in the 1980 & 1990s. The rise to political prominence of a middle-class black elite, which caused significant class & gender cleavages within the black community, is traced. It is suggested that tensions over these cleavages came to a head in the 1982 city council race in which white conservative elites capitalized on cleavages within the black community by supporting conservative male members of the black elite. The career of Willie Dell, a black female council member who lost in the 1982 election, is offered as a metaphor for the class, gender, & racial divisions that led to the decline of the black majority on the council. It is suggested that the result of this process has been the suppression of black women's voices. 22 References. D. M. Smith