Location
7:00 Book Discussion
(Zoom Meeting Opens at 6:45)
Everyone is welcome to join our discussion, even if you did not have time to read the book.
Join LWV ABC Book Club Zoom Meeting
- Meeting ID: 924 7032 1268
- Passcode: 854158
- Dial in: +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) or +1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
Whiteness in Plain View: A History of Racial Exclusion in Minnesota (2022)
by Chad Montrie
Widely seen as a progressive stronghold of the Midwest, Minnesota also has some of the greatest racial disparities in the nation. Those disparities have their roots in Minnesota’s earliest days as a territory and in the decades that followed.
Whiteness in Plain View examines the ways White residents across Minnesota acted to intimidate, control, remove, and keep out African Americans over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their methods ranged from anonymous threats, vandalism, and mob violence to restrictive housing covenants, realtor deceit, and mortgage discrimination, and they were aided by local, state, and federal government agencies as well as openly complicit public officials.
Chapter by chapter, the book shows that Minnesota’s overwhelming Whiteness is neither accidental nor incidental, and that racial exclusion’s legacy is very much woven into the state’s contemporary politics, economy, and culture.
Library Availability: Multiple books, ebooks and audiobooks available at Hennepin County and Anoka County libraries.
For an excerpt of the book, read Montrie's article "In that Very Northern City: Recovering a Forgotten Struggle for Racial Integration in Duluth", published in the Summer 2020 issue of Minnesota History magazine.
