"i started my life in an old, cold, rundown tenement slum"

This blog has offered a preview of topics that might be useful in conversations involving African Americans' historical presence in cities. Behind every posting has been a desire to push thinking about when and why African Americans became associated with city living and how space is always part of the equation in such an exploration. There has also been a wish that we examine things we take for granted such as why few listeners questioned that Diana Ross and the Supremes’ late-1960s hit, “Love Child” (“I started my life in an old, cold, rundown tenement slum…”) was about a black child born out of wedlock in a northern city. Such conversations benefit greatly from also investigating how the literature on African American urban history has progressed from addressing race and ghettoes to debates about blacks as an “underclass.” Entangled in some of these discussions are many issues, among them, migration, gender, ethnicity, the significance of border cities, deindustrialization, class politics, suburban settlement and definitions of community. As I think through these and other topics, and continue other work, I send season’s greetings and wishes for a happy new year.