Liberty Road

A unique insight into desegregation in the suburbs and how racial inequality persists Half of Black Americans who live in the one hundred largest metropolitan areas are now living in suburbs, not cities. In Liberty Road, Gregory Smithsimon shows us how this happened, and why it matters, unearthing the hidden role that suburbs played in establishing the Black middle-class. Focusing on Liberty Road, a Black middle-class suburb of Baltimore, Smithsimon tells the remarkable story of how residents broke the color barrier, against all odds, in the face of racial discrimination, tensions with suburban whites and urban Blacks, and economic crises like the mortgage meltdown of 2008. Drawing on interviews, census data, and archival research he shows us the unique strategies that suburban Black residents in Liberty Road employed, creating a blueprint for other Black middle-class suburbs. Smithsimon re-orients our perspective on race relations in American life to consider the lived experiences and lessons of those who broke the color barrier in unexpected places. Liberty Road shows us that if we want to understand Black America in the twenty-first century, we must look not just to our cities, but to our suburbs as well.

Liberty Road uncovers and exposes the social, political, cultural, and economic contradictions of middle-class African-American suburban life. Gregory Smithsimon explores the ways social conflicts and inequalities play out and through physical places and emphasizes the roles that African-American residents play in understanding and addressing suburban community issues., Gregory Smithsimon chronicles the experiences of middle-class blacks who were the first residents to integrate into Liberty Road, a predominantly white Baltimore suburb. He explores their side of the story, showing us how this racial project unfolded in political ways, constraining black progress under the guise of racial inclusivity., This deeply-researched and engrossing text invites us to think of the relationship between race, place, and neoliberalism in innovative ways, namely through an examination of African-American suburbanites. In doing so, Smithsimon provides a crucial analysis of the persistent tensions between racial progress and retrenchment., African American suburbs are different from African American urban communities and middle-class white communities, often in counterintuitive ways. Liberty Road explains the history, present, and future significance of these differences.

Gregory Smithsimon is Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College and Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of September 12: Community and Neighborhood Recovery at Ground Zero, The Beach Beneath the Streets: Contesting New York City's Public Spaces, and Cause:…And How It Doesn’t Always Equal Effect.