Chocolate Cities: The Black Map of American Life - Paperback

Chocolate Cities: The Black Map of American Life

From Central District Seattle to Harlem to Holly Springs, Black people have built a dynamic network of cities and towns where Black culture is maintained, created, and defended. But imagine--what if current maps of Black life are wrong? Chocolate Cities offers a refreshing and persuasive rendering of the United States--a "Black map" that more accurately reflects the lived experiences and the future of Black life in America.

A New Cartography of Black American Experience

Drawing on film, fiction, music, and oral history, Marcus Anthony Hunter and Zandria F. Robinson trace the Black American experience of race, place, and liberation, mapping it from Emancipation to now. This groundbreaking work in urban geography and African American studies challenges conventional understandings of how Black communities have shaped American cities and towns across generations.

As the United States moves toward a majority minority society, Chocolate Cities provides a provocative, broad, and necessary assessment of how racial and ethnic minorities make and change America's social, economic, and political landscape. The book examines the historical and contemporary significance of Black urban spaces, from established cultural centers to emerging communities redefining what it means to be Black in America.

Interdisciplinary Research Meets Cultural Analysis

This scholarly work combines rigorous sociological research with cultural studies methodology, analyzing how Black communities have created, defended, and transformed urban spaces throughout American history. Hunter and Robinson employ an innovative approach that integrates multiple disciplines--from historical geography to ethnic studies--to present a comprehensive view of Black city-making and urban life.

About the Authors

Marcus Anthony Hunter is Chair of the Department of African American Studies, Associate Professor of Sociology, and he holds the Scott Waugh Endowed Chair in the Division of the Social Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of Black Citymakers: How the Philadelphia Negro Changed Urban America and the president of the Association of Black Sociologists.

Zandria F. Robinson is Associate Professor in Rhodes College's Department of Sociology and Anthropology. She is the author of This Ain't Chicago: Race, Class, and Regional Identity in the Post-Soul South and coeditor of Repositioning Race: Prophetic Research in a Postracial Obama Age.