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Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City

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Black Metropolis is perhaps the founding document of African-American studies, a classic work of sociology that still resonates today. It is a paradigmatic expression of the Chicago School of sociology, however, a school that today stands in some disrepute, at least in some circles. Indirectly, it was the target of James Baldwin's famous attack on Richard Wright in his essay, Everybody's Protest Novel. The claim of the criticism has been that the Chicago School, due to its insistance upon using a "scientific approach", merely reproduces the very terms under which African-Americans have been oppressed--a claim that has proceeded under the warrant of European intellectuals such as Theodor Adorno. Still, Black Metropolis is a landmark study, and, unfortunately, many if not most of its observations and conclusions remain true today, and in fact it could be argued that conditions in the Black Belt of Chicago have gotten worse, not better, since 1945, the year of Black Metropolis' publication--which lends a certain credence to the criticisms mentioned above, though perhaps it should be qualified by saying that they are not so much criticisms of the Chicago School as they are criticisms of American society. Since then, as we know, we have witnessed a great shift in American public opinion away from what some consider to be the excesses of those days; so much so, in fact, that the work of Black Metropolis may again be regarded as a profoundly useful book. Embodying American liberalism as it does--which counted as a grave sin thirty years ago--Black Metropolis may possibly be due for a fresh look.

St. Clair Drake (1911-1990) was an African-American sociologist, and Horace R. Cayton, Jr. (1903-1970) was an African-American educator, researcher, government official, newspaper columnist, and sociologist.

Here are some quotations from the book:

"There were prophets of doom in the Twenties, but a general air of optimism pervaded the Black Belt, as it did the whole city." (Pg. 80)
"Why, it might be asked, do Negroes continue migrating to Chicago in the face of a color-line? The answer is simple: 'That line is far less rigid than in the South.'" (Pg. 101)
"This web of social relationship between colored people is sharply marked off from the corresponding 'social' world of white people---marked off in the South by law and in the North by custom." (Pg. 115)
"Negroes are generally indifferent to social intermingling with white people, and this indifference is closely related to the existence of a separate, parallel Negro institutional life which makes interracial activities seem unnecessary and almost 'unnatural.'" (Pg. 121)
"(S)ince white women are 'forbidden fruit' to Negro men, it is not surprising that more Negro men than white marry across the color line. It is this one-sided aspect of intermarriage that irks Negro women." (Pg. 137)
"It is undoubtedly true that mere contact is likely to result in some degree of understanding and friendliness. It is equally true, however, that contact can produce tension and reinforcement of folk-prejudices. On the adult level this is especially true if the contact is between Negroes and whites of very different socio-economic levels." (Pg. 281-282)

Following receival of this book, I immediately begin my research on the issue of Re-Africanization, a concept used in the African Diaspora particularly connecting Afro-Brazilians in their identity search. Knowledge of the impact of the often minimized Great Migration of those of African descent following the death of Booker T. Washington (1915) until 1935 (during the Great Depression). Drake's analysis unveils what Sernett's Bound for the Promise Land suggested, i. e., the migration of Blacks from South to North carried also the differing diametrically-opposite views of Washington & Du Bois. The influence of these two Blackamerican giants' ideologies were manifested as Blacks made the most dynamic, significant move which impacted the personal lives and the personal faith of a historic people. Drake shares the sociological perspective needed to understand the Black Church and its impact and changing ideology which is not necessarily based on theology, as it also may be the sociological. Drake method at examining the City-dwelling of Blackamericans, if followed more closely, takes a view of Black life in the Black Community which differs significantly from the "deficit approach" taken by White Sociologists and Blacks who bought into this belief without giving due consideration to the differences which exists between the races, especially in an age where so many are attempting to encourage one size fit all and to disprove America's heritage about the plight of the "Negro in America." The nonsensical which persists the blindness to the words of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's National Call to Action which authenticated the theme of the 94th Annual Session of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASLAH) founded by the late Carter G. Woodson, PhD who raised the question about when Blacks would receive the Citizenship promised. Even Moynihan responded it would be two generations in the 1965/66 report. Anyone truly interested in their minds and thoughts being rejuvenated and opened to another way of life would benefit greatly from this writing, even after all these years. An excellent guide for studying Black families today in light of the information which would prove most useful in interpreting Black Family life after the deficit and failure of many sociologists and psychologists to see the life of others through different lenses.

I purchase the boy for my fourteen granddaughter's summer reading assigment. I read the book a long time ago.Mr. Wright's experiences were customary for the South, where I live. My granddaughter's comments were very favorable. She read and wrote her review of the book in very short period time.