Throughout my reading of Black Citymakers, I was struck by the recurring theme of what Hunter deems “secondary marginalization.” In the struggle to find a voice for black Philadelphians in a political environment determined to silence them, black advocates at times found it expedient or necessary to make concessions and seek consensus at the expense of the community’s least privileged.

Often, secondary marginalization seems to manifest as a tradeoff between political representation and economic change, wherein the poorest black Philadelphians are denied basic reforms so that elite black leaders might gain election. Beginning with the housing reform efforts beginning in the 1930s, black leaders emphasized political enfranchisement over housing reform. Perhaps, at this time, prioritizing leadership was the only way for black interests to be heard; black advocates appeared to believe that the black vote would install an administration guided by black interests, ultimately bringing material change to housing and a myriad of other issues.

Yet as the decades wore on, the claim becomes less and less convincing. During the War on Poverty, for instance, Bowser and Evans employed a selective funding scheme to grant organizations inequitable amounts of backing from the Philadelphia Antipoverty Action Committee. The local Community Action Councils for which the PAAC had been created received relatively little funding, and ultimately faced their demise when the PAAC faced budget cuts and dismantling. Thirty years later, despite improvements for black enfranchisement and leadership, less powerful members of the black community faced continued marginalization, particularly along class lines.

If the 2010 flash mobs make anything clear, it is that some members of the community still see no place for their voices in politics. With black residents nearing fifty percent of the population in cities like Philadelphia, and with a shift from “middlemen to mainmen” occurring, perhaps consensus-seeking concessions will cease to be the norm, and a new openness to structural reform will shift the narrative for the underserved.