Southern Black Metropolis: Position, Place, and Population Below the Mason-Dixon Line

Abstract

Which black communities in cities beneath the Mason-Dixon Line (demarcating the US South and North) enhanced blacks’ entry into occupations of the early twentieth-century Black Metropolis? (that is, professional, entrepreneurial, public service, and cultural production occupations). An answer to this question informs theory and research on the urban South’s black communities. Census data analyses address the question, testing hypotheses about position, place, and population effects. Washington, DC’s border position and place-related advantages enhanced blacks’ entry into all Black Metropolis occupations, net of the city’s sizable black population. These advantages, stemming from the city’s unique role as the nation’s capital and its venerable black elite class, made Washington, DC’s black community a prime location for the southern Black Metropolis, contrary to arguments that Black Metropolises could not exist below the Mason-Dixon Line in the early twentieth century.