
The Martyr Made Podcast #23 Whose America?, pt. 2: Inner City Blues
Angel Levine
- Bernard Malamud's "Angel Levine" depicts a Jewish man finding commonality with a Black angel.
- This story reflects pre-1960s optimism about Black-Jewish relations.
The Tenants
- "The Tenants" portrays a violent conflict between a Jewish and a Black writer.
- This reflects the post-1960s breakdown of Black-Jewish relations.
Forgotten History
- The history of Black-Jewish relations is complex and often overlooked.
- Incidents like Kanye West's antisemitism highlight this forgotten tension.
The Great Migration of 1915-1960 saw over six million African Americans move from the rural South to the big cities of the North and West. It was one of the largest mass migrations in human history, and one whose consequences defined American domestic politics throughout the 20th century. But it wasn’t the first time the industrial cities of America had experienced massive demographic transformation, and the black migrants would run smack into the immigrants of previous generations. In the 1960s, frustration and anger turned to conflict, as race riots drove what was left of the white ethnics out of the inner cities. Today we tell the story of the battle for control of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville school district in New York City – a topic which might sound a bit dull, but was one of the most intense periods of racial conflict in recent American history. The conflict captured the attention of the country for months, and led to a split in the alliance between American blacks and American Jews that had powered the civil rights movement until the late 1960s.
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