This event takes place in person at Charis and on Crowdcast, Charis' virtual event platform. This event is free, but registration is required for virtual attendance. Please read the in-person event guidelines at the bottom of this page to be sure you can participate in the event. 

Charis welcomes Augustus Wood in conversation with Dartricia Rollins for a discussion of Class Warfare in Black Atlanta: Grassroots Struggles, Power, and Repression under Gentrification, which traces the history of post-civil rights Black Atlanta through rigorous class analysis.

Between 1966 and 2015, the city of Atlanta was transformed. In the late 1960s, Black politicians ascended to the top of the power structure for the first time thanks to newly enfranchised Black working-class voters. Through the early 1970s, the demographics of the city shifted, and the combination of Black empowerment and white flight produced a growing Black working-class majority that increasingly demanded Black Power policies that often clashed with the policies supported by affluent residents. But by the 2010s, Atlanta's city core had been thoroughly gentrified, and the ability of Black working-class Atlantans to organize and build power had diminished significantly.

Tracing the history of post-civil rights Black Atlanta through rigorous class analysis, Augustus Wood argues that Black and white elites responded to an energized and politicized Black working class by forging a public-private partnership power bloc that included the small but growing Black political leadership, expanding the racial class contradictions in Black Atlanta. This bloc worked to shift state funding away from public services and toward gentrification projects that demolished subsidized housing, and it ramped up police surveillance to deter working-class resistance. Paying close attention to political economy and class while drawing on unexamined archival sources and oral histories of Black working-class Atlantans, especially Black women, Wood reframes our understanding of contemporary Black urban life by highlighting the centrality of the dynamics of intraracial class conflict in urban space.

About the Author 
Augustus Wood is assistant professor in the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Dartricia Rollins is Visiting Librarian for Oral History in the Rose Library at Emory University. She is the co-founder of Georgia Dusk: a southern liberation oral history. As well as an organizer with the Black Alliance for Peace and the Jericho Movement. Dartricia is also a volunteer of WRFG 89.3 and co-host of the Revolutionary Afrikan Perspectives (RAP) radio show. 

The event is free and open to all people, but we encourage and appreciate a donation of $5-20 in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Donate on Crowdcast or via our website: www.chariscircle.org/donate or in person at the event.

Charis Books is a fully wheelchair accessible space with on site van accessible parking, two ramps, and additional overflow accessible parking nearby. Additional accessibility information can be found on the Accessibility page of our website. 

In-person event guidelines:

All attendees must wear a face mask during the event.

We will begin seating people at 7:00 PM ET.

This event will be live-streamed via crowdcast. Click here to register to attend virtually.

As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event.

If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request specific accessibility accommodations, please contact info@charisbooksandmore.com or call the store at 404-524-0304.

Please contact us at info@chariscircle.org or 404-524-0304 if you would like ASL interpretation at this event. If you would like to watch the event with live AI captions, you may do so by watching it in Google Chrome and enabling captions: Instructions here. If you have other accessibility needs or if you are someone who has skills in making digital events more accessible please don't hesitate to reach out to info@chariscircle.org.

By attending our event, whether in person or virtually, you agree to our Code of Conduct: Our event seeks to provide a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), class, or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment in any form. Unsolicited sexual language and imagery are not appropriate. Anyone violating these rules will be expelled from this event and all future events at the discretion of the organizers. Please report all harassment to Charis staff immediately or email info@chariscircle.org.

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Charis Books and More/Charis Circle

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Class Warfare in Black Atlanta: Grassroots Struggles, Power, and Repression under Gentrification - Augustus Wood in conversation with Dartricia Rollins