URBANIZATION OF THE BLACKS

general pattern of urbanization of the black population is well known, but some of the detailed aspects need to be studied. Two recent articles have appeared that are relevant to this subject, The Urbanization of Negroes in the United States, by Reynolds Farley, and Change and Transition in the Black Population of the United States, by Irene Taeuber.3 Both of these articles as well as other materials have been drawn upon in the preparation of the present paper. Table 1 shows the percentage of the Negro population and of the white population classified as urban from 1870 through 1960.2 In the United States as a whole the black population shows a higher percentage urban than does the white only for 1960. Prior to this, the white population had a larger percentage classified as urban. separate regions, however, show a quite different picture. In every region of the United States except the secessionist South, the black population has been more urban than the white population at all census periods since 1870. In the secessionist South, even in 1960, the black population was not as highly urbanized as the white even though the per cent urban had increased from a little over eight per cent in 1870, to 55 per cent in 1960. concentration of the black population in the South and in the rural areas in the South has, until about 1960, made the total black population of the United States more rural than the white population. Thus, the urbanization of the black population has been primarily a record of movement out of the rural South. Table 2 shows the per cent of the total black population in the rural and urban portions of the South from 1870 to 1960. In 1870, over 80 per cent of the black popu-