An updated and expanded edition of a groundbreaking text. When originally published in 1979, Black Bostonians was the first comprehensive social history of an antebellum northern black community. At the time, most scholarship had focused on the nature and experience of southern slave society while few historians had directed their attention to African Americans in the antebellum North.

Those that did seemed to be satisfied with a ""culture of poverty"" theory; that is, the idea that slavery and urban poverty had destroyed the antebellum black family and other community...

An updated and expanded edition of a groundbreaking text. When originally published in 1979, Black Bostonians was the first comprehensive social history of an antebellum northern black community. At the time, most scholarship had focused on the nature and experience of southern slave society while few historians had directed their attention to African Americans in the antebellum North.

Those that did seemed to be satisfied with a ""culture of poverty"" theory; that is, the idea that slavery and urban poverty had destroyed the antebellum black family and other community...