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Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City
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."—Bucklin Moon, The Nation
"This volume makes a great contribution to the building of the future American and the free world."—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."—Thomas Sancton, New Republic
"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."—Bucklin Moon, The Nation
"This volume makes a great contribution to the building of the future American and the free world."—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."—Thomas Sancton, New Republic
910 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1945
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 3, 2017
This book changed the way I think about Chicago, and it usefully deepened my understanding of Black history in the United States more generally. While the book was written in 1945, its analysis of race, class, and the exercise of power through urban politics resonates nigh perfectly today.
The authors were such astute observers of their time that even with 70 years of hindsight we have little to add to what they had to say. Their politics were rooted in a deep intersectional analysis of labor, capital, and the dynamic coalitions that cut across class and identity to mold the city. But they don't just have good intuitions and sharp analysis. These guys argued based on rigorously collected data. They surveyed and interviewed hundreds of people to write this book. They compiled illuminating hand-drawn infographics (which are, frankly, better than most fancy digital infographics that we see today). They carried out deep ethnographic work with Bronzeville communities and share the insights, attitudes, and language of real people who populate the world that they describe. And they insert themselves into the study when appropriate.
I can't really gush too much about this book. Read it, for god's sake!
The authors were such astute observers of their time that even with 70 years of hindsight we have little to add to what they had to say. Their politics were rooted in a deep intersectional analysis of labor, capital, and the dynamic coalitions that cut across class and identity to mold the city. But they don't just have good intuitions and sharp analysis. These guys argued based on rigorously collected data. They surveyed and interviewed hundreds of people to write this book. They compiled illuminating hand-drawn infographics (which are, frankly, better than most fancy digital infographics that we see today). They carried out deep ethnographic work with Bronzeville communities and share the insights, attitudes, and language of real people who populate the world that they describe. And they insert themselves into the study when appropriate.
I can't really gush too much about this book. Read it, for god's sake!
November 24, 2019
Obviously, this book is a classic and doesn't need my review, but I was surprised to find it so compelling now, over 60 years after the first edition. In fact, it might be one of those really rare works that becomes even more relevant as we continue to recognize and confront the legacies of race in America.
While clearly a serious academic piece of work, that is far too narrow of a lense for reading this book. This is a broad and deep statistical study in the tradition of DuBois, but also a fierce argument for recognition and understanding of the complex communities that were (and continue to be) portrayed simplistically if not ignored altogether.
It's also methodologically radical, even now! While today, the statistical sections feel a bit dated and dry (although the figures are perfection), the qualitative (and narrative!) sections are fascinating looks at the realities and subtleties of socioeconomic life in the Black belt. Now, when intersectionality is a bit of an academic buzzword, it's extremely compelling to see the way race and class are used to thread together the different parts of the study. Will return to this book many, many times.
While clearly a serious academic piece of work, that is far too narrow of a lense for reading this book. This is a broad and deep statistical study in the tradition of DuBois, but also a fierce argument for recognition and understanding of the complex communities that were (and continue to be) portrayed simplistically if not ignored altogether.
It's also methodologically radical, even now! While today, the statistical sections feel a bit dated and dry (although the figures are perfection), the qualitative (and narrative!) sections are fascinating looks at the realities and subtleties of socioeconomic life in the Black belt. Now, when intersectionality is a bit of an academic buzzword, it's extremely compelling to see the way race and class are used to thread together the different parts of the study. Will return to this book many, many times.
July 11, 2023
This is a must-read for anybody who cares about prewar Black life. What Drake and Cayton have done here -- in 1945, no less! -- is produce a vital document, consisting of stats, graphs, ethnography, and fascinating oral histories, on Black people in Chicago, proving that they lived rich and amazing lives despite the deck being stacked against them. Amazingly, this volume was financed by the WPA. This reminded me a lot of Vollmann's massive nonfiction volumes (which represent a similar amalgam of disparate stats and interviews). There really needs to be a BLACK METROPOLIS REVISITED. Because that's how important and awe-inspiring this massive volume is. It has proven incredibly helpful and humbling.
July 17, 2007
A Mega-classic of urban sociology, in this book Drake and Cayton (from the 2nd Chicago School?) explore a large array of issues facing African Americans during the 1930s and early 40s. My professor gave me a deep distrust of the connections they draw between class and religious experience, but I would still consider it a must-read for American historians as well as contemporary sociologists interested in city life.
March 31, 2025
Un sujet qui m'était totalement inconnu. Cette enquête m'a passionnée. C'est à la fois un captivant livre d'histoire sur le lutte des classes et les collisions raciales, et aussi une véritable encyclopédie sur les quartiers noirs.
September 30, 2021
Prescient words from Richard Wright, from the 1945 introduction - the problem wasn't then and now "Black crime" - the problem is white rage:
"Social discontent assumes many subtle guises, and a society that recognizes only those forms of social maladjustment which are recorded in courts, prisons, clinics, hospitals, newspapers and bureaus of vital statistics will be missing some of the most fateful of the telltale clues to its destiny. What I mean is this: It is distinctly possible to know, before it happens, that certain forms of violence will occur. It can be known that a native-born white man, the end-product of all our strivings, educated, healthy, apparently mentally normal, having he stability of a wife a family, possessing the security of a good job with high wages, enjoying more freedom than any other country on earth accords its citizens, but devoid of the most elementary satisfactions, will seize upon an adolescent, zoot-suited Mexican and derive deep feelings of pleasure from stomping his hopeless guts out upon the pavements of Los Angeles. but to know that a seemingly normal, ordinary American is capable of such brutality implies making a judgment about the nature and quality of our everyday American experiences which most Americans simply cannot do. For, TO ADMIT THAT OUR INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCES ARE OF SO LOW A QUALITY AND NATURE AS TO PRECLUDE THE DEEP, ORGANIC SATISFACDTIONS NECSSSARY FOR CIVILIZED, PEACEFUL LIVING, KIS TO COMDEMN THE SYSTEM THAT PROVIDES TRHOSE EXPERIENCES."
"Social discontent assumes many subtle guises, and a society that recognizes only those forms of social maladjustment which are recorded in courts, prisons, clinics, hospitals, newspapers and bureaus of vital statistics will be missing some of the most fateful of the telltale clues to its destiny. What I mean is this: It is distinctly possible to know, before it happens, that certain forms of violence will occur. It can be known that a native-born white man, the end-product of all our strivings, educated, healthy, apparently mentally normal, having he stability of a wife a family, possessing the security of a good job with high wages, enjoying more freedom than any other country on earth accords its citizens, but devoid of the most elementary satisfactions, will seize upon an adolescent, zoot-suited Mexican and derive deep feelings of pleasure from stomping his hopeless guts out upon the pavements of Los Angeles. but to know that a seemingly normal, ordinary American is capable of such brutality implies making a judgment about the nature and quality of our everyday American experiences which most Americans simply cannot do. For, TO ADMIT THAT OUR INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCES ARE OF SO LOW A QUALITY AND NATURE AS TO PRECLUDE THE DEEP, ORGANIC SATISFACDTIONS NECSSSARY FOR CIVILIZED, PEACEFUL LIVING, KIS TO COMDEMN THE SYSTEM THAT PROVIDES TRHOSE EXPERIENCES."
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews