by James Gregory

To understand how the African American exodus changed history we must start with the observation that the migrants were moving into some of the most important places in America, the half dozen or so largest cities. And they were doing so precisely as those cities enjoyed their era of greatest political and cultural authority: New York, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Washington DC. These cities, all but one outside the South, were the chief money centers, media centers, and political centers for early and mid twentieth century America, the place to be for anyone looking for access to those forms of power. Black southerners found ways to influence some of the institutions hosted by these dominant cities and through them gained leverage that eventually, over the course of decades, would be used to shift the nation's systems of racial relations and also regional relations. Key to that evolving influence was a distinct community formation that came together in big northern cities during the second quarter of the twentieth century. Contemporaries called it the Black Metropolis.