The Price of Freedom: Race, Consumption, and the Long Black Freedom Struggle, 1915-1964
Date of Award
Fall 2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
African American Studies
First Advisor
Feimster, Crystal
Abstract
My dissertation, “The Price of Freedom: Race, Consumption, and the Long Black Freedom Struggle, 1915-1964” places Black grocery shoppers at the center of histories of the Civil Rights Movement and consumption. As unique spaces of interracial encounter amidst segregation, Jim Crow stores were key sites of race-making. Focusing on grocery stores, I track how changes in the retail industry destabilized the norms maintaining white supremacy in commercial spaces. I also examine how civil rights activists reshaped their advocacy in response to changes in the retail industry. During the Cold War, shopping became an emblem of prosperity and freedom. The inequities Black southerners faced in stores were symbolic of their exclusion from full citizenship. Through a close examination of Civil Rights era boycotts, I demonstrate how protestors incorporated and responded to this entanglement of citizenship and consumption in the post-WWII US context through their activism.
Recommended Citation
Jones, Micah Camille, "The Price of Freedom: Race, Consumption, and the Long Black Freedom Struggle, 1915-1964" (2023). Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations. 1124.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/gsas_dissertations/1124
