The ‘Black Metropolis’ Revisited

Abstract

The conventional wisdom on the Black metropolis of the early 20th century holds that urban Black communities in the South lagged far behind their counterparts in the North in terms of providing opportunities for Blacks to enter occupations that were associated with Blacks’ socioeconomic progress. Yet, analyses of census data in the present study offer mixed support for this wisdom. The odds of Black participation in art, show business, public service and professions were, as expected, lower in the urban South. Yet surprisingly, the odds of Black participation in most entrepreneurial ventures were approximately similar in the urban South and urban North. The results imply that the conventional wisdom should be modified to indicate that, at the beginning of the Great Migration, the benefits to Blacks of the large Black communities of northern cities were more cultural and political than economic.

1. Introduction

The urbanisation of the Black population that followed the first wave of the ‘Great Migration’ of Blacks from the South (circa 1915–30) was viewed optimistically by many Blacks in the early 20th-century United States. The rise of large Black populations in major northern cities—most notably, in New York and Chicago—was seen as an especially positive development. These populations—far removed from the oppression of the Jim Crow South and squarely situated in the nation’s biggest and most important urban-industrial centres—would, it was widely believed, allow Blacks to create their own racially separate and self-sustaining communities. With huge numbers of Black workers, consumers and voters, these burgeoning communities would, according to the received argument, provide unrivalled opportunities for Blacks to enter professional, entrepreneurial and public service occupations in which Blacks would serve other Blacks and, in so doing, advance the economic and social progress of Blacks as a group (Gregory, 2005, pp. 115–116; Massey and Denton, 1993, pp. 115–116).

The idea that the large Black communities of the urban North would usher in a new era of prosperity and autonomy for Blacks was especially popular during the ‘Fat Years’ of the 1920s and was commonly called the ‘Dream of Black Metropolis’ (Meier and Rudwick, 1976, p. 252, citing Drake and Cayton, 1962). The idea of the Black Metropolis was strongly embraced by members of the new Black upper class of doctors, lawyers, business owners and ministers—many of whom were southern-born migrants—that arose in these northern communities (Meier and Rudwick, 1976, p. 252). It was also enthusiastically promoted by northern-based Black journalists and authors who, in trumpeting the collective and individual achievements of Blacks in northern cities, focused attention on the two largest Black communities of the nation: Harlem in New York and Bronzeville in Chicago. These communities, with their thriving commercial districts, lively entertainment zones, dynamic intellectual circles and vital ethnicity-based voluntary organisations, were routinely cited in the early 20th century as the premier centres of the professional, entrepreneurial and cultural accomplishments of Black America (Gregory, 2005, pp. 113–116). Such claims, moreover, were bolstered by numerous anecdotes from contemporary and historical case studies.¹

The idea of the Black Metropolis was additionally supported by highly publicised reports in the northern Black press of Black successes in a variety of pursuits within the substantial Black communities that emerged in other urban centres of the North during the Great Migration.² These pursuits included professional practices in law, dentistry and medicine; businesses in finance, insurance, retail trade and personal services; and official positions in city and county governments. They also included a broad range of artistic, literary, entertainment and mass media endeavours that produced and distributed various forms of cultural and political expression to Black and racially mixed audiences in the North. In the early 20th century, these pursuits were often associated with Blacks’ economic and social advancement as well as with their hopes of gaining a measure of independence from the White-dominated society.

The notion that large Black communities of the urban North were ‘Black Metropolises’ that offered unprecedented opportunities for Blacks to enter such occupations has been a central theme of both popular and scholarly discussions of the consequences of Black urbanisation in the early 20th century. These discussions, found in the literature already cited, have frequently emphasised the significance of the unique advantages of these communities and of northern locations, more generally. They have focused, in particular, on how the enormous Black populations of major northern cities, set within the key nodes of national commerce, furnished Blacks in the aforementioned pursuits with co-ethnic markets, audiences and constituencies that were unequalled in size and affluence. These discussions have, furthermore, accentuated the other, less tangible, assets of the large Black communities of the urban North, such as the supposedly unmatched possibilities that existed within them for group solidarity, mutual assistance, intellectual stimulation, freedom of expression and acclimatisation to the verve and sophistication of modern city life.

These discussions have thus created the impression that during the early 20th century, the Black Metropolis was a northern phenomenon that had no counterpart in the urban South. For example, a leading scholar of the Black Metropolis has asserted that, in the wake of the Great Migration, the large Black communities of the urban North not only flourished because of superior material resources, which were generated from the collective wherewithal of a sizeable and spatially concentrated Black industrial working class (Gregory, 2005, p. 124), these communities also prospered, he declared, because, compared with the large Black communities of the urban South, they had fewer racially based social and political restrictions, more cosmopolitan cultural atmospheres and—last but not least—the allure of a compelling and widely publicised ‘promised land’ story that attracted highly talented and ambitious Blacks from other parts of the North as well as from the South (Gregory, 2005, p. 129). This scholar, accordingly, concluded that, while “Black Metropolises of a sort were taking shape in Atlanta, New Orleans, Birmingham, Richmond, Memphis, Norfolk, and Houston”, among other major southern cities during the early 20th century, the large Black communities of these cities lagged far behind their northern counterparts, economically, culturally and politically (Gregory, 2005, p. 129).

2. Southern Black Communities: A Re-evaluation

The allegation that the Black Metropolis was strictly a phenomenon of the urban North may, however, be called into question by literature, in both history and sociology, on the Black communities of the urban South. This literature suggests that during the early 20th century, these communities also provided favourable conditions for Blacks to enter many of the aforementioned occupations. In particular, this literature shows that, in the aftermath of the urbanisation of the South’s Black population, major southern cities—notably, Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, New Orleans, Nashville and Richmond—had large Black communities and visible agglomerations of Black-owned businesses that displayed entrepreneurial vigour (Boyd, 2009; Butler, 1991; Butler and Wilson, 1988; Ingham, 2003; Rabinowitz, 1980; Wilson, 1975). These agglomerations included small retail shops and service establishments, as well as substantial enterprises in banking, real estate, insurance and newspaper publishing (Ingham, 2003). The larger and more profitable Black-owned businesses in these capital- and knowledge-intensive fields were especially prominent and provided a foundation for the commercial districts of the Black communities of these cities. Called ‘anchor firms’, these enterprises circulated financial capital within the Black community, created white-collar jobs for Blacks and attracted the practices of Black physicians, dentists, attorneys and other professionals into the focal points of these commercial districts (Ingham, 2003, pp. 647–665).

The literature also suggests that, during the early 20th century, the large Black communities of the urban South benefited from the efforts of upwardly mobile, southern-born Blacks who were business leaders, steeped in an old tradition of entrepreneurship, self-help, and institution building (Butler, 1991, pp. 234–244; Meier and Rudwick, 1976, p. 252). These business leaders were supposedly inspired by the argument, popularised by Booker T. Washington and the Negro Business League, that the rigid separation of Blacks and Whites prescribed by South’s cultural and legal conventions created an “economic shelter” for Black entrepreneurs in the region (Myrdal, 1944, p. 794). These business leaders asserted, for instance, that in the South, Black entrepreneurs could ‘take advantage of the disadvantages’ of racial restrictions by selling their goods and services to circumscribed Black consumers in the large Black communities that emerged in the urban centres of the region (Higgs, 1977, pp. 90–93; Meier and Rudwick, 1976, p. 252). These consumers, despite their meagre earnings, “collectively formed a sizeable market” (Ingham, 2003, p. 639). And, these business leaders further argued, successful Black entrepreneurs would expand their businesses, employ additional Black workers and generate, in the process, a self-sufficient ‘group economy’ that would enable Blacks as a group to escape the oppression of the region, fulfilling Washington’s dream of Black racial sovereignty (Higgs, 1977, pp. 90–93).

The literature, furthermore, indicates that, within the large Black communities of the urban South, upwardly mobile, southern-born Blacks also founded and staunchly supported numerous social institutions and voluntary organisations that promoted the well-being of Blacks. These institutions included churches, mutual-aid societies, fraternal orders and a variety of schools, colleges and universities (Butler, 1991). Perhaps the most salient were the historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), public and private, that were established in several major southern cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These institutions, according to studies of their graduates, played crucial roles in the economic and social advancement of many southern-born Blacks in business, the professions and academia, among other fields, not only in the South but in other regions as well (Boyd, 2007; Butler, 1991, pp. 259–273).

The literature suggests, too, that there were pulsating entertainment districts within the large Black communities of major southern cities in the early 20th century. These districts were modest in size, compared with those in the largest Black communities of the urban North; and often, they lost their most talented performers to the nightclubs and restaurants of the northern communities (Gregory, 2005, pp. 137–139). In particular, many southern Black musicians gravitated to the booming entertainment districts of Harlem and Bronzeville during the first wave of the Great Migration (Boyd, 2005). Yet, the entertainment districts of the large Black communities of southern cities—for example, Decatur Street in Atlanta and Beale Street in Memphis—were among the first urban entertainment districts in the nation to showcase the distinctive musical styles pioneered by southern Blacks, including jazz, ragtime and blues music, which were rooted in the socio-cultural heritage of Blacks in rural areas of the Deep South (Gregory, 2005, pp. 138–139).

In sum, there are reports that, during the early 20th century, the large Black communities of Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, New Orleans, Nashville and other major southern cities provided opportunities for Blacks to enter many pursuits that were associated with the idea of the Black Metropolis and linked to the upward socioeconomic mobility of Blacks as a group. Such pursuits, to repeat, included professional practices, entrepreneurial ventures and public service occupations, as well as artistic, literary, entertainment and mass media endeavours. It follows that there are reasons for believing that the conventional wisdom on the Black Metropolis may have understated the extent to which the large Black communities of the urban South were Black Metropolises in the early 20th century.

It would not be surprising to discover that this is the case. The sociological and historical literatures on the urbanisation of the Black population in the early 20th century are dominated by studies of northern cities that were principal destinations of the Great Migration (Goings and Mohl, 1995; Trotter, 1995). Moreover, these investigations have focused “almost exclusively” on New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Detroit (Goings and Mohl, 1995, p. 284). In contrast, there have been relatively few sociological and historical studies of the large Black communities of the southern cities identified earlier (Trotter, 1995). Consequently, the sociological and historical literatures on the urban Black communities of the early 20th century are heavily skewed towards the biggest cities of the North and have unduly neglected the major cities of the South.

3. Northern Black Communities: A Re-evaluation

It is possible, too, that the conventional wisdom on the Black Metropolis has also overstated the degree to which many large Black communities in northern cities were places that offered uniquely favourable opportunities for Blacks to participate in the occupations mentioned earlier. This conventional wisdom is exemplified by a rich and compelling historical narrative (Gregory, 2005) that, as its author points out, offers a sorely needed alternative to the ‘ghettoisation’ perspective that captivated many historians and social scientists in the 1960s. Yet while this narrative can be praised for its balanced contribution to scholarship, it can also be criticised. It rests disproportionately on accounts of the huge Black communities of New York and Chicago. And it frequently interweaves anecdotal reports of these communities with those of northern Black communities that are not usually regarded as particularly important seats of Black socioeconomic progress (for example, Kansas City and Saint Louis). It is understandable why this narrative is replete with accounts of the Black communities of the national urban centres of New York and Chicago. These communities have, for reasons already stated, attracted the lion’s share of attention in urban research. Yet, such a narrative could unintentionally create the misleading impression that the early-20th-century Black communities of other northern cities were smaller versions of Harlem or Bronzeville when, clearly, that was not the case.

Furthermore, there are grounds for questioning the belief, central to discussions of the northern Black Metropolis, that the gigantic Black communities of New York and Chicago—Harlem and Bronzeville respectively—offered unparallelled opportunities for Blacks to enter the aforementioned occupations. On the one hand, this widely accepted belief is sound with reference to theory. Social scientists, applying the central place theory (King, 1984), usually presume that the centres of a national urban hierarchy have locational advantages that promote success in numerous fields. Such advantages include opportunities for occupational specialisation, close proximity to large audiences or markets, exposure to cosmopolitanism and innovative ideas, and accessibility to social relationships that stimulate accomplishment (Hawley, 1972; Murray, 2003; Ogburn and Duncan, 1964). In addition, the sub-cultural theory of urbanism postulates that the large ethnic communities of such urban centres are the most fruitful settings for ethnic minority groups to develop a strong sense of group identity and cohesion and to build collectively viable, ethnicity-based economic and social institutions (Fischer, 1984, pp. 37–38, p. 149). On the other hand, the belief that Harlem and Bronzeville—the nation’s largest Black communities—were unique Black Metropolises is predicated mainly on anecdotal evidence and has yet to be corroborated with analyses of quantitative data (Boyd, 2011).

In this respect, it is noteworthy that a recent study has vigorously challenged the almost universally acclaimed ‘promised land’ story of the Great Migration and Black advancement (Eichenlaub et al., 2010). This investigation of economic outcomes found that, on the average, the southern Blacks who moved to the North or West in the 20th century did not benefit substantially from leaving the South. Indeed, the analysis revealed that these Blacks sometimes fared worse in terms of employment, income and occupational status than did southern Blacks who remained in their region of origin. The study concluded that the first generation of Black southern migrants, while positively selected for human capital, encountered extraordinary difficulties in its non-southern destinations. Such difficulties, the authors surmised, might have resulted from intense prejudice and discrimination, the shock of culturally foreign surroundings and/or labour markets that were saturated by an oversupply of new arrivals from the South.

4. The Present Study

Was Black participation in the occupations associated with the idea of the Black Metropolis in the early 20th century lower in the large Black communities of the urban South than in the large Black communities of the urban North? The conventional wisdom argues forcefully that the answer is an unqualified ‘yes’. However, the foregoing reappraisals of this wisdom imply that such a response may be premature. Therefore, to address this question, the present study will comparatively analyse the largest Black communities in the US in the early 20th century—i.e. those communities that, at this time, had the richest potential to become Black Metropolises. Specifically, the investigation will examine the participation of Blacks in four sets of occupations that are suggested by the review of the literature on the Black Metropolis. These sets include professional practices, entrepreneurial ventures, public service occupations and artistic, literary, entertainment and mass media endeavours.

If the conventional wisdom is sustained, then sociologists and historians can be more confident in asserting that the large Black communities of the urban South did, indeed, lag behind their counterparts in the urban North as Black Metropolises in the early 20th century. Thus, to some extent, the ‘promised land’ story of the Great Migration and the northern Black Metropolis would be affirmed. However, if the conventional wisdom is undermined, then sociologists and historians would have to consider seriously a reinterpretation of the social history of the nation’s largest urban Black communities. Such a reinterpretation would have to entertain the possibility that, during the early 20th century, neither the disadvantages of the Black communities of the urban South, nor the advantages of the Black communities of the urban North, were as profound as most sociologists and historians have traditionally believed. This reinterpretation would also have to offer a more nuanced assessment of the northern Black Metropolis than does the historical narrative that was discussed earlier.

5. Units of Analysis

In keeping with the definition of the Black Metropolis that is implicit in the literature, the units of analysis will be the most important national and regional urban centres that also had the most substantial Black communities in the wake of the urbanisation of the Black population in the early 20th century. These units are operationally defined as the cities that hosted the 25 largest Black communities in the US in 1930 (US Bureau of the Census, 1933a, table 23), the year commonly used by scholars to mark the end of the first wave of the Great Migration (Marks, 1989; Tolnay, 2003). Fourteen of these cities are outside the South; 11 are within it. The non-southern cities, called ‘northern’ for simplicity, are: Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City (Missouri), Los Angeles, New York, Newark (New Jersey), Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Saint Louis and Washington, DC. The southern cities are: Atlanta, Birmingham, Dallas, Houston, Jacksonville (Florida), Louisville, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, Norfolk and Richmond. While Baltimore and Washington, DC, are in the Census Bureau’s definition of the South, these cities are more appropriately classified as non-southern, according to sociological definitions of the region (Reed, 1972, pp. 13–15) and applied in path-breaking research on the Great Migration (Eichenlaub et al., 2010). These definitions place Maryland and the District of Columbia in the northern region of the US.

6. Data, Variables and Method

Data from the Census of 1930 (US Bureau of the Census, 1933b, table 12) are used to calculate the dependent variables, which are measures of Black participation in the four sets of occupations already identified. The selection of the particular occupations within these sets, while guided by the literature reviewed earlier on the Black Metropolis of the early 20th century, is also based partly on the availability of data. Hence, the lists of occupations that follow are comprehensive but not exhaustive. The Census Bureau’s official classifications of these occupations are in quotation marks.

The professional occupations are: doctors (“physicians and surgeons”); dentists (“dentists”); lawyers (“lawyers, judges, and justices”); ministers (“clergymen”); and professors (“college presidents and professors”). Complete data for these occupations exist for men only. The entrepreneurial occupations are: bankers (“bankers and bank officials”); insurance agents (“insurance agents, managers, and officials”); retail merchants (“retail dealers, including retail managers”); and barbers (men) and beauticians (women) (“barbers, hairdressers, and manicurists”). Complete data on bankers and on insurance agents exist for men only. The public service occupations are: municipal officials (“city and county officials and inspectors”) and social workers (“social and welfare workers”). Complete data on municipal officials exist for men only. Complete data on social workers exist for women only. Finally, the artistic, literary, entertainment and mass media occupations are: artists (“artists, sculptors, and teachers of art”); musicians (“musicians and teachers of music”); performers (“actors and showmen”); writers (“authors, editors, and reporters”); and photographers (“photographers”). Complete data on performers, writers, and photographers exist for men only.

Black participation in these occupations is operationally defined at the city level as the odds ratio

B P_{X} = (B_{X} / O_{X}) / (B_{O} / O_{O})

where, BP_X is Black participation in X, the occupation of interest; B_X is the number of Blacks employed in X; O_X is the number of all other groups employed in X; B_o is the number of Blacks employed in all other occupations in the workforce; and is the number of all other groups employed in all other occupations in the workforce.

The use of an odds ratio measure is recommended by scholars who study occupational participation because such a measure is unaffected by the relative size of the Black workforce, unlike a commonly used measure of occupational representation that is based on proportions—namely, the Black proportion of X divided by the Black proportion of the workforce (Wilson, 2003).

In all, 20 dependent variables will be analysed (descriptive statistics are in the Appendix). These dependent variables will be regressed on the following independent variables. A dummy variable for the large Black communities of the urban South (1 = southern city, 0 = otherwise) is the main independent variable of interest. The conventional wisdom on the Black Metropolis of the early 20th century suggests that the participation of Blacks in these occupations was lower in the Black communities of the urban South than in the Black communities of the urban North. Accordingly, this wisdom predicts that the slope coefficient of this variable will be negative. Conversely, the reappraisal of the conventional wisdom—which holds that this wisdom has understated the degree to which large Black communities in southern cities were Black Metropolises—implies that the participation of Blacks in these occupations was similar in the urban Black communities of the South and North. This interpretation, then, predicts that the slope coefficient of this variable will not differ significantly from zero.

A dummy variable that represents the enormous Black communities of Harlem and Bronzeville, located in the national urban centres of New York and Chicago, is included to control for the possibility that regional differences in the participation of Blacks in the listed occupations were unduly influenced by these celebrated communities. The conventional wisdom on the Black Metropolis of the early 20th century holds that, in the aftermath of the Great Migration, these Black communities—the largest in the nation, situated in the dominant centres of the US urban hierarchy (Conzen, 1977)—were America’s premier Black Metropolises and thus offered decidedly superior opportunities for Blacks’ participation in these occupations. Therefore, this wisdom predicts that the slope coefficient of this variable (1 = New York or Chicago; 0 = otherwise) will be positive. However, the foregoing reappraisal argues that the conventional wisdom, while theoretically sound, rests mainly on anecdotal reports and, consequently, has an uncertain evidentiary basis. It follows that this reappraisal predicts that the slope coefficient of this variable will not differ significantly from zero.

Because the conventional wisdom makes clear directional predictions about the respective slope coefficients of the variables, the appropriate statistical tests are one-tailed. Such tests are easier to satisfy than are two-tailed tests and, for this reason, the multiple regression analyses presented later are predisposed to producing results that uphold the conventional wisdom that, in the early 20th century, Blacks’ participation in these occupations was, on the average, lower in the urban Black communities of the South than in those of the North and higher in Harlem and Bronzeville than in the other large urban Black communities of the nation.

In addition, an independent variable that measures the absolute size of the Black community is included on theoretical grounds: the natural logarithm of the Black population (US Bureau of the Census, 1933a, table 23). The sub-cultural theory of urbanism indicates that the absolute size of an ethnic community is a salient factor for two reasons. First, “absolute numbers … determine the relations” within the ethnic group of interest (Simmel, 1950, p. 98; quoted in Fischer, 1975, p. 1328; original emphasis). Secondly, absolute numbers of group members generate and support the ethnicity-based social and economic institutions that comprise a “thriving ‘social world’” (Fischer, 1975, p. 1326). Of course, the ideal type of a Black Metropolis is, essentially, a thriving social world. The sub-cultural theory of urbanism further suggests that the absolute size of the Black community should be included for another reason: controlling for size allows the researcher to infer that any significant intercommunity difference observed in the analysis is a genuine reflection of urbanism that is ‘independent’ of community size (Fischer, 1975, p. 1319). Following a standard practice, the values of this variable are logarithmically transformed, in order to amend their skewed distribution.

7. Findings

Was the participation of Blacks in these listed pursuits lower in the large Black communities of the urban South than in the large Black communities of the urban North during the early 20th century? Ten of the 20 analyses in Table 1 indicate that the answer is yes. The analyses of professional, public service and artistic and entertainment occupations offer the most convincing support for the conventional wisdom. The lower participation of Black men in the professions of law (β = −0.539), dentistry (β = −0.473) and medicine (β = −0.328) in the large Black communities of southern cities doubtless reflects the formidable obstacles encountered by Blacks who sought to enter these professions in the urban South in the early 20th century (for example, exclusion from many institutions of higher learning). Blacks in the large Black communities of northern cities also encountered such obstacles; yet racial barriers to education and training in law, dentistry and medicine were generally less stringent outside the South (Myrdal, 1944, pp. 322–326).

The lower participation of Black men in municipal offices (β = −0.421) and of Black women in social work (β = −0.776) in the large Black communities of southern cities is likely to be due to regional differences in Black political influence. After Reconstruction (1865–1877), virtually all Blacks were pushed out of state and local government jobs in the South and, subsequently, Blacks were effectively excluded from such positions in the region by discriminatory practices and disenfranchisement (Myrdal, 1944, pp. 327–328). Conversely, in northern cities, where Blacks could vote and run for office, large Black communities provided a base of support for Black politicians and Black political influence (Meier and Rudwick, 1976, p. 252), which could open doors for Blacks in public-sector employment.

Table 1.

Regression analyses of Black participation in 20 occupations: the 25 largest Black communities, 1930

Occupation	Urban South		National Centre		Black population
	β	p-value	β	p-value	β	p-value	Intercept	Adjusted R²	p-value
Professions (m)
Doctors	−0.328	0.061	0.352	0.086	−0.357	0.084	1.310	0.088	0.184
Dentists	−0.473	0.013	0.188	0.222	−0.163	0.254	0.929	0.146	0.099
Lawyers	−0.539	0.003	0.306	0.088	−0.171	0.222	0.457	0.298	0.015
Ministers	0.306	0.059	0.130	0.289	−0.481	0.025	8.507	0.226	0.039
Professors^a	0.442	0.042	−0.110	0.361	0.051	0.433	−0.099	0.064	0.279
Entrepreneurial pursuits
Bankers (m)	0.112	0.312	0.171	0.271	−0.103	0.356	0.076	−0.112	0.900
Insurance agents (m)	0.035	0.434	0.495	0.032	−0.142	0.291	0.527	0.055	0.252
Retail merchants (m)	−0.080	0.364	−0.061	0.415	0.040	0.443	0.179	−0.134	0.982
Retail merchants (w)	−0.043	0.422	−0.131	0.314	−0.210	0.220	0.503	−0.041	0.572
Barbers (m)	−0.178	0.214	−0.022	0.468	−0.230	0.202	2.798	−0.066	0.684
Beauticians (w)	−0.597	0.001	0.285	0.081	−0.035	0.431	1.607	0.433	0.002
Public service occupations
Municipal officials (m)	−0.421	0.012	0.380	0.044	0.019	0.464	0.050	0.336	0.009
Social workers (w)	−0.776	0.000	0.007	0.486	−0.283	0.070	1.454	0.503	0.000
Artistic, literary, entertainment and mass media endeavours
Artists (m)^b	−0.478	0.005	0.471	0.017	−0.012	0.478	0.090	0.474	0.002
Artists (w)^c	−0.521	0.005	0.503	0.019	−0.288	0.109	0.404	0.391	0.009
Performers (m)	−0.494	0.001	0.419	0.013	0.090	0.307	0.184	0.549	0.000
Musicians (m)	−0.246	0.115	0.506	0.025	−0.350	0.083	4.478	0.131	0.117
Musicians (w)	−0.819	0.000	0.201	0.094	−0.138	0.181	1.020	0.682	0.000
Writers (m)	−0.171	0.192	0.621	0.008	−0.387	0.058	0.684	0.187	0.062
Photographers (m)^d	0.218	0.118	0.190	0.201	0.571	0.010	−0.801	0.378	0.009

Missing Detroit, Kansas City, Newark, Dallas, Jacksonville and Norfolk.

Missing Birmingham, Nashville and Norfolk.

Missing Pittsburgh, Birmingham, Jacksonville and Nashville.

Missing Birmingham, Louisville and Norfolk.

Notes: m = men only; w = women only. Slope coefficients are standardised betas. All p-values are one-tailed.

The lower participation of Black men in art (β = −0.478), of Black women in art (β = −0.521), of Black men in show business (β = −0.494) and of Black women in music (β = −0.819) in the large Black communities of southern cities is probably a consequence of racial restrictions and customs that limited Blacks in these fields to the markets and audiences of their own communities (Myrdal, 1944, pp. 329–330). In contrast, Black artists, performers and musicians in the large Black communities of northern cities regularly gained access to the markets, audiences and resources of the wider urban milieu in the early 20th century and, therefore, had a broader range of opportunities (Gregory, 2005, p. 124, pp. 135–142). It is possible, too, that the large Black communities of the urban North also offered greater freedom for Blacks in these creative endeavours to express their feelings of group identity, solidarity and pride through their respective works (Gregory, 2005, p. 129).

The other 10 analyses, however, imply that the answer to the question is no, casting doubt on the conventional wisdom. The higher participation of Black men in the ministry (β = +0.306) and in the professorate (β = +0.442) in the large Black communities of the urban South, while inconsistent with the argument that the northern Black Metropolis offered superior opportunities for Blacks to enter such professions, is not totally unexpected. The relatively high rate of religious participation among southern Blacks helped to make the ministry an especially attractive occupation for Black men in the urban South in the early 20th century (Boyd, 2006). And the racially segregated system of higher education in the South that restricted the scholastic options of Black students in the region during this time provided opportunities for Black intellectuals to pursue academic careers that sometimes led to appointments in northern institutions (Gregory, 2005, pp. 132–135).

The analyses of entrepreneurship provide the least support for the conventional wisdom. They show that the participation of Black men in banking, insurance, retail trade and barbering, and of Black women in retail trade, was not significantly different in large urban Black communities of the South and North. Only in the analysis of beauticians is the conventional wisdom affirmed. The lower participation of Black women in beauty culture (β = −0.597) in the large Black communities of southern cities may be due to regional differences in demand conditions. Perhaps the demand for beauty culture and hairdressing in the South lagged behind that in the North. In the latter region, Black women who had recently arrived from the South during the early stage of the Great Migration were frequently advised to “have neat hair and clean nails when searching for work”, and those Black women who were looking for secretarial or clerical jobs were often told that they “needed straight hair and light skin to have any chance of obtaining such positions” (Boyd, 2000, pp. 653–654). This demand-side account is speculative. Yet there is no basis for suggesting that Black women in the urban South were less entrepreneurial than their counterparts in the urban North, for the participation of Black women in the retail trade was not significantly different in the two regions.³

If the disconfirmatory results of these analyses seem surprising, then it is probably because much of the literature on Black business enterprise in the early 20th century has emphasised entrepreneurship among Blacks in the urban North and, in doing so, has unduly neglected Black entrepreneurship in the urban South. For example, Drake and Cayton’s (1962) study of the commercial district of Bronzeville during the interwar years is routinely cited in sociological discussions of Black business enterprise. Yet investigations of Black commercial districts in southern cities (Butler, 1991; Ingham, 2003; Wilson, 1975) usually are not mentioned in these discussions (Boyd, 2009).

The analyses of musicians, writers and photographers additionally impugn the conventional wisdom. The participation of Black men in the entertainment occupation of music and in the literary and mass media occupations of writing and the artistic occupation of photography was not significantly different in the large urban Black communities of the South from in those of the North (with the exceptions, to be discussed later, of music and writing in Harlem and Bronzeville). These results fly in the face of allegations that ‘media institutions’ and ‘cultural enterprises’ in the large Black communities of southern cities were grossly inferior to their counterparts in the large Black communities of northern cities in the early 20th century (Gregory, 2005, p. 124). It seems fair to surmise that, outside Harlem and Bronzeville, where the foremost Black cabarets, newspapers and publishers were located, the odds that Black men pursued careers as musicians, writers or photographers in large urban Black communities were not substantially different across the South and North during this time.

Furthermore, the analyses lend surprisingly little support to the proposition, central to the conventional wisdom, that Harlem and Bronzeville, as the supreme Black Metropolises of the early 20th century, offered undeniably better opportunities for Black participation in the 20 occupations. Only seven of the 20 analyses indicate that Black participation in these occupations was significantly greater, at the 90 per cent level of confidence, in these famous communities than in the large Black communities of the other cities. Support for the conventional wisdom is strongest in the analyses of the participation of Black men in writing (β = +0.621) and music (β = +0.506), of Black women in art (β = +0.503) and of Black men in art (β = +0.471) and show business (β = +0.419). These analyses affirm the widely held belief that Harlem and Bronzeville, situated in the two most important cities in the nation, were Black America’s cultural, entertainment and literary capitals in the aftermath of the first wave of the Great Migration. There is also some support for the conventional wisdom in the analyses of the public service occupations. The odds that Black men were municipal officials were higher in Harlem and Bronzeville (β = +0.380) than in the large Black communities of the other cities, no doubt because of the energetic political activities of Blacks in New York and Chicago in the early 20th century (Gregory, 2005, pp. 241–247; Meier and Rudwick, 1976, p. 252, pp. 268–269). The support for the conventional wisdom about Harlem and Bronzeville in these analyses is, moreover, in line with theory (Fischer, 1975, 1995) and research (Karnig, 1979) which imply that the cultural expression and political mobilisation of Black populations are most intense in dominant centres of the urban hierarchy.

Yet there is barely any support for this conventional wisdom in the analyses of the professions and entrepreneurial pursuits. Consistent with this wisdom, the odds that Black men were insurance agents were higher in Harlem and Bronzeville (β = +0.495) than in the large Black communities of the other cities, mainly because Bronzeville hosted some of the nation’s most successful Black-owned insurance companies in the early 20th century (Meier and Rudwick, 1976, p. 252). However, the odds that Black men were doctors, dentists or lawyers were not significantly higher in these two celebrated Black communities, at the 90 per cent level of confidence. The odds that these men were doctors (β = +0.352) or lawyers (β = +0.306) in these two communities, though, were higher, at the 80 per cent level of confidence, implying that Harlem and Bronzeville were only marginally better environments for Blacks in medicine and law than were the large Black communities of the other cities.

8. Implications

The evidentiary basis of the conventional wisdom on the Black Metropolis is highly uncertain. Little support for this received view was observed and this support was obtained with a methodology that was predisposed to affirming the conventional wisdom. Therefore, the popular narrative of the large Black communities that emerged in the urban North after the first wave of the Great Migration must be modified.

One modification suggested by the results is that historians and sociologists who study the consequences of Black urbanisation in the early 20th century might think in terms of Black Metropolises (plural) rather than in terms of a single Black Metropolis. The higher odds of Black participation in art, show business and music—and, to some extent, in writing—in the large Black communities of northern cities reflect the cultural Black Metropolis of the urban North. In the ideal type of the cultural Black Metropolis, Blacks have not only freedom of expression but also access to the material resources and social relationships that stimulate artistic, theatrical, musical and literary endeavours. The higher odds of Black participation in municipal offices and social work in the large Black communities of northern cities are indicative of the political Black Metropolis of the urban North. In the ideal type of the political Black Metropolis, Blacks have citizenship rights and opportunities collectively to mobilise voting blocs and pressure groups that can enlarge the presence of Blacks in local government and social service administration.

However, the analyses of entrepreneurial pursuits cast doubt on the existence of an economic Black Metropolis in which the participation of Blacks in a wide range of entrepreneurial ventures was considerably greater in the large Black communities of northern cities than in the large Black communities of the southern cities. In the ideal type of the economic Black Metropolis, the participation of Blacks in the professions and in business enterprise in the urban North during the early 20th century was invigorated by conditions that are vividly described in the narrative discussed earlier. Such conditions included the “concentrated consumer power” of the Black industrial working class and the “entrepreneurial energies” of Blacks from a “brain-drain segment of the Great Migration” that was comprised of southern Blacks “with money and entrepreneurial skill” (Gregory, 2005, pp. 121, 124). There are indications that such conditions (assuming they existed) may have produced higher odds of Black participation in medicine, dentistry and law in the large Black communities of northern cities. Yet there is no evidence that such conditions produced higher odds of Black participation in a broad variety of entrepreneurial ventures in these communities.

This lack of evidence bolsters the argument that Blacks in the large Black communities of southern cities were no less entrepreneurial than were their counterparts in the large Black communities of northern cities in the early 20th century. This argument is derived from accounts of the entrepreneurial vitality of large Black communities in southern cities in the early 20th century and of the venerable tradition of business enterprise among upwardly mobile southern Blacks. Further, this lack of evidence accords with the claim that, for numerous reasons, Blacks found it difficult to exploit the entrepreneurial potential of the consumer markets of large Black communities in the urban North during the early 20th century (Light, 1972). If these markets were indeed more lucrative in the North than in the South, as the conventional wisdom asserts, then it would be reasonable to expect that Black participation in entrepreneurial ventures would be greater in the former region than in the latter one. Yet this is observed only in the analysis of insurance agents in Harlem and Bronzeville. Evidently, in the realm of entrepreneurship, neither the disadvantages of the Black communities of the urban South, nor the advantages of the Black communities of the urban North, were as profound as sociologists and historians have traditionally believed.

The dearth of support for the conventional wisdom tallies with research on economic outcomes in the Great Migration (Eichenlaub et al., 2010). That research found—in sharp contrast to the celebrated ‘promised land’ story—that the southern Blacks who moved to the North or West in the 20th century did not, on the average, benefit markedly from leaving the South in terms of employment, income and occupational status. However, that research did conclude that, during the migration, there were

powerful noneconomic conditions that differed substantially between the South and the North (Eichenlaub et al., 2010, pp. 119–120; original emphasis).

Furthermore, it suggested that such conditions—notably, voting rights and educational opportunities—were better in the North and are most likely to have resulted in a higher quality of life for Blacks in that region (Eichenlaub et al., 2010, pp. 119–120). The present investigation, by casting doubt on the existence of an economic Black Metropolis and affirming the existence of a cultural and political Black Metropolis, lends support to this argument by showing that the benefits to Blacks of large Black communities in the urban North were, at the start of the Great Migration, much more cultural and political than economic.

Footnotes

Notes

Appendix

Table A1.

Black participation in 20 occupations: the 25 largest Black communities, 1930

Occupation	Mean	S.D.
Professions (m)
Doctors	0.347	0.148
Dentists	0.388	0.166
Lawyers	0.112	0.101
Ministers	2.441	0.735
Professors^a	0.217	0.251
Entrepreneurial pursuits
Bankers (m)	0.023	0.031
Insurance agents (m)	0.221	0.130
Retail merchants (m)	0.218	0.061
Retail merchants (w)	0.219	0.074
Barbers (m)	1.215	0.372
Beauticians (w)	1.107	0.474
Public service occupations
Municipal officials (m)	0.057	0.081
Social workers (w)	0.286	0.205
Artistic, literary, entertainment and mass media endeavours
Artists (m)^b	0.067	0.056
Artists (w)^c	0.070	0.065
Performers (m)	0.650	0.361
Musicians (m)	1.218	0.518
Musicians (w)	0.365	0.211
Writers (m)	0.123	0.082
Photographers (m)^d	0.202	0.099

Missing Detroit, Kansas City, Newark, Dallas, Jacksonville and Norfolk.

Missing Birmingham, Nashville and Norfolk.

Missing Pittsburgh, Birmingham, Jacksonville and Nashville.

Missing Birmingham, Louisville and Norfolk.

Notes: m = men only; w = women only.

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