Rhonda Y. Williams

Marching toward justice: Lessons learned from the Shaw High School Mighty Cardinals Marching Band in East Cleveland

The Shaw High School marching band has emerged as a collective site of individual and group pride and empowerment in the stories gathered through the community-based ‘Voicing & Action Project’, which the Social Justice Institute debuted in East Cleveland. At first glance, a high school marching band might not have much in common with weighty social justice topics such as challenging marginalization, exposing the workings of power, and advancing fairness. However, when people reminisce about their time as members of the marching band, the stories they tell and the lessons they recall suggest building blocks critical to laboring for a more just society. The band is a source of pride, empowers youth, builds community, and increases access to higher education. These qualities can be reimagined as strategies to advance the cause of social justice in East Cleveland and the world beyond.

Black Milwaukee, Women, and Gender

This article reflects upon the contributions and limits of Joe William Trotter Jr.s Black Milwaukee by revisiting the books proletarianization model. This model helped to complicate analyses and historical narratives of black urban experiences by departing from “ghetto”-based paradigms and focusing squarely on economy, class relations, and black people as laborers. But the model also proved limited, particularly as it related to the substantive versus “snapshot” incorporation of womens stories and gender analysis.