Synopses & Reviews
Ground-breaking when first published in 1945,
Black Metropolis remains a landmark study of race and urban life. Based on a mass of research conducted by Works Progress Administration field workers in the late 1930s, it is a historical and sociological account of the people of Chicago's South Side, the classic urban ghetto. Drake and Cayton's findings not only offer a generalized analysis of black migration, settlement, community structure, and black-white race relations in the early part of the twentieth century, but also tell us what has changed in the last hundred years and what has not. This edition includes the original Introduction by Richard Wright and a new Foreword by William Julius Wilson.
"Black Metropolis is a rare combination of research and synthesis, a book to be deeply pondered. . . . No one who reads it intelligently can ever believe again that our racial dilemma can be solved by pushing buttons, or by gradual processes which may reach four or five hundred years into the future."and#8212;Bucklin Moon, The Nation
"This volume makes a great contribution to the building of the future American and the free world."and#8212;Louis Wirth, New York Times
"By virtue of its range, its labor and its insight, the book seems certain to become a landmark not only in race studies but in the broader field of social anthropology."and#8212;Thomas Sancton, New Republic
Review
andldquo;Black Metropolis is a rare combination of research and synthesis, a book to be deeply pondered. . . . No one who reads it intelligently can ever believe again that our racial dilemma can be solved by pushing buttons, or by gradual processes which may reach four or five hundred years into the future.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;This volume makes a great contribution to the building of the future America and the free world.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;By virtue of its range, its labor and its insight, the book seems certain to become a landmark not only in race studies but in the broader field of social anthropology.andrdquo;
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 837-845) and index.
About the Author
John Gibbs St. Clair Drake (1911andndash;90) was a sociologist and anthropologist who founded African American Studies programs at Roosevelt University and Stanford University. His books included
Social Work in West Africa,
Race Relations in a Time of Rapid Social Change, and
Black Religion and the Redemption of Africa.
Horace R. Cayton (1903andndash;70) was an American sociologist known for his studies of working class black Americans, particularly in mid-twentieth-century Chicago. His books included
Black Workers and the New Unions and
Long Old Roadandmdash;An Autobiography.
Mary Pattillo is the Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and African American studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City, also published by the University of Chicago Press, and coeditor of Imprisoning America: The Social Effects of Mass Incarceration.
Table of Contents
Author's Acknowledgment
Introduction by Richard Wright
Introduction to the 1962 Edition by Everett C. Hughes
Author's Preface to the 1962 Edition
Foreword to the 1993 Edition by William Julius Wilson
Introduction: Midwest Metropolis
Part I
1. Flight to Freedom
2. Land of Promise
3. The Great Migration
4. Race Riot and Aftermath
5. Between Two Wars
Part II
6. Along the Color-Line
7. Crossing the Color-Line
8. The Black Ghetto
9. The Job Ceiling
10. The Shifting Line of Color
11. Democracy and Economic Necessity: Breaking the Job Ceiling
12. Democracy and Economic Necessity: Black Workers and the New Unions
13. Democracy and Political Expediency
Part III
14. Bronzeville
15. The Power of Press and Pulpit
16. Negro Business: Myth and Fact
17. Business Under a Cloud
18. The Measure of the Man
19. Style of Livingand#8212;Upper Class
20. Lower Class: Sex and Family
21. The World of the Lower Class
22. The Middle-class Way of Life
23. Advancing the Race
Part IV
24. Of Things to Come
A Methodological Note by W. Lloyd Warner
Notes and Documentation
Bronzeville 1961
Appendix: Black Metropolis 1961
Postscript 1969
A List of Selected Books Dealing with the American Negro
Suggestions for Collateral Reading, 1962
Suggestions for Collateral Reading, 1969
Index