Building the Black City: The Transformation of American Life

A new way of seeing Black history—the sweeping story of how American cities as we know them developed from the vision, aspirations, and actions of the Black poor.

Building the Black City shows how African Americans built and rebuilt thriving cities for themselves, even as their unpaid and underpaid labor enriched the nation's economic, political, and cultural elites. Covering an incredible range of cities from the North to the South, the East to the West, Joe William Trotter, Jr., traces th...