This article examines how Drake and Cayton’s pathbreaking study of Chicago’s early twentieth-century Black community—published 80 years ago as the book, Black Metropolis—continues to guide scholarship on race and cities. The article extends the idea, originating in historical research, that this now-classic study motivated a valuable social-scientific inquiry into urbanism and Black communities. Specifically, Black Metropolis showed that, contrary to the sociological perspective of ghettoization, many economic and cultural aspects of these communities thrived under the conditions of industrial urbanization. The article concludes that Drake and Cayton’s study is a touchstone for future explorations of topics emerging from the shifting geography and demographics of urban Black communities in the first two decades of the twenty-first century United States.
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