We Are Each Other's Business - by Nicole Marie Brown

About the Book

"We Are Each Other's Business, by Nicole Marie Brown, explores the erasure of Black women's contribution to the strategic sophistication of the convergence of the Consumer Rights, Women's Rights, and Welfare Rights Movements in Chicago in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before what became the larger Welfare Rights Movement associated with the National Welfare Rights Organization. She argues that while Black women were central to this early period, they were stifled by the Consumer Rights and Women's Rights Movements inability to see poor Black women as fellow political actors. Brown analyzes Black women's use of the technology of consumer credit to demonstrate the vision and skill that these women deployed. Utilizing an archival and computational approach, the book's chapters focus on the similarities and differences of The Woodlawn Organization and Jobs or Income Now, how consumer spaces instill legitimacy, how poor people were caught by the Nixon administration's welfare policies, and it concludes with a consideration of how this effort failed and allowed for the rise of subprime lending in poor communities"--

Book Synopsis

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Welfare Rights Movement organized at both local and national levels, advocating for poor people's inclusion, dignity, and autonomy. We Are Each Other's Business examines Black women's leadership within the Chicago Welfare Rights Movement, recasting their consumer activism as a form of Black feminist technology.

Nicole M. Brown calls for understanding the Black women of the Welfare Rights Movement as sophisticated strategists who engaged the tensions among capitalism, consumerism, and economic liberation. She analyzes Black women's engagement with consumer credit, tracing how they linked consumption with citizenship and critiqued the state's treatment of the poor. Brown offers a radical reframing of the struggle between Black women and the state as a battle of technologies, showing how Black women challenged "algorithmic assemblages of race, class, and gender" and "analog algorithms of poverty." She also shows how racism, sexism, and classism stifled opportunities for alliances: although the Welfare Rights Movement converged with consumer and women's rights movements, white and middle-class activists were unwilling to recognize poor Black women as fellow political actors. Bringing together historical sociology, computational methods, and intersectional Black feminist theory, We Are Each Other's Business offers innovative and generative insights into Black women's struggle for political and economic equity.

Review Quotes

We Are Each Other's Business recasts the struggle between Black women and the state during the Chicago Welfare Rights Movement as a "battle of technologies." It reveals how these women skillfully used consumerism as activism to challenge deep-seated state injustices against poor women, presenting an engaging narrative of resilience and resistance.--Traci Parker, author of Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement: Workers, Consumers, and Civil Rights

Brown's ambitious and illuminating We Are Each Other's Business digs deep into the history of the welfare, women's, and consumer rights movements, demonstrating how poor Black women negotiated their status as citizens and consumers to create lasting social change in Chicago and beyond. The lessons she draws from the work of Temporary Woodlawn Organization, Jobs or Income Now, and the National Welfare Rights Organization are just as urgent today.--Virginia Eubanks, author of Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor

About the Author

Nicole M. Brown is an associate professor of sociology at Saint Mary's College of California.