ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As cliché as it may sound, every book truly comes together via the collective effort of a community. It is only through the support of the many contributors to this project that Redefining the Political has come into the world. First and foremost, I would like to thank all of the Altgeld community members and subject experts I spoke with throughout the Altgeld Gardens and Phillip Murray Homes development, and Chicago Public Housing more broadly. I especially must thank Cheryl Johnson of People for Community Recovery (PCR) and Bernadette Williams of the Altgeld Gardens LAC. Your guidance helped me at a critical moment. Thank you to Natalie Y. Moore for your openness and kindness to a very young and very naive graduate student thirteen years ago. I am grateful for the support of Janet Dykstra, Kate Babbit, and Andi Cumbo. Your care and generosity throughout the birth and development of this book project helped me reach the finish line. Thank you to all of the funders who contributed to the research, development, writing, and editing of this project.

A special thank you to the University of Chicago Social Sciences Division, the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia, and the Collaborative for Equity through Research on Women and Girls of Color at the University of Connecticut, Storres. Thank you to my John Jay College and CUNY colleagues here in New York City. I am especially grateful to my friends and family who kept me going when I lost track of my path. I deeply appreciate my mentors and my dissertation committee; thank you to my dissertation cochairs Cathy J. Cohen and Omar McRoberts, as well as Michael C. Dawson and Bernard Harcourt. Thank you to the University of Michigan faculty who encouraged me every step of the way. In particular I would like to express my gratitude to my undergraduate thesis advisers, Tiya Miles and Vincent Hutchings. I am especially thankful for my patient and rigorous editor Aaron M. Javsicas, the three peer reviewers for this manuscript, and all of the staff and board members at Temple University Press for their support of this project. Redefining Political has been a long time coming; I am very grateful to be crossing the finish line.