Introduction to Research on Black America: Prospects and Preview

INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH ON BLACK AMERICA: PROSPECTS AND PREVIEW There is little doubt that Black America has been brought sharply to the attention of the geographic profession. The flurry of interest and activity is most visible in the efforts of the Association of American Geographers Commission on Geography and Afro-America (COMGA) and in the increased number of dissertations and published papers dealing with topics related to Black America. In 1969, for example, Deskins reported that only four doctoral dissertations dealing with the American Negro had been completed between 1949 and 1968, and none are known prior to 1949. (I) During only two years, 1969 and 1970, however, at least six dissertations dealing specifically with selected aspects of Black America were reported completed. (2) Such a trend is likely to continue. Clearly, the term "Black America" refers to aspects of life in the United States experienced by that portion of the population being of largely African descent and to the territory in which this population lives. However, studies dealing with characteristics and phenomena associated with this population are not dealing with features of human geography developed in isolation. Black America and its problems are clearly, and usually explicitly, tied to White America and its problems. Thus, although the papers in this special issue of the Southeastern Geographer emphasize characteristics of Black America, and these mostly in the Southeast, the larger society is also being discussed at least by implication. PROSPECTS. In teaching about Black America, the primary concerns may be those of methods of incorporating materials and ideas (3) and of accuracy and balance in representing these materials and ideas. (4) In research, specific concerns are much more diverse. The researcher may treat Black America as a population group and be concerned with a description of selected group characteristics, both in their distinctive patterns (5) and in changes in these patterns. (6) An alternative research interest might be identification of correlates with the racial variable. (7) Since one of the primary features of Black America has been its spatial separation from White America, other research efforts might deal with the characteristics of individual and group isolation created through this separation. Such efforts could be directed toward either the degree of, and the patterns resulting from, spatial segregation by race, (8) or the causes and consequences of this segregation. (9) The primary research focus might be on a problem of social concern, and the research goal an elaboration of the problem from the geographic perspective in an attempt to throw new light on its possible solution. (10) Or the research might be designed explicitly as a contribution to policy solutions of problems experienced by blacks. (11) Within each of these research categories, 86Southeastern Geographer the range of specific topics available to the individual researcher is very large. In part because Black America has been largely neglected by geographers , possibilities for substantial research contributions are very great. For example, one of the most striking characteristics of current population geography in the United States is the persistent spatial separation of residential areas by race. There are many exceptions, of course, but a dominant feature of residential America is its racial segregation. (12) Aspects of this have recently been examined by geographers. (13) It should be pointed out, however, that most studies of urban black residential areas have been restricted to Northern cities. By comparing these completed studies with similar examinations of Southern cities, it may be possible to illuminate the key differences between the effects of de facto and de jure segregation, if in fact there are any differences. In addition to repetition of previous studies within a new regional setting, segregation in the South can be studied simply because it has differed in some ways, at least until recently, from segregation found elsewhere in the country. In Northern cities, black urban territory has usually expanded into previously white areas. In many Southern cities, black communities have either possessed greater spatial permanence or expanded almost entirely toward the urban periphery. (14) One characteristic of Southern residential segregation related to area permanence is the presence of barriers between the black and white neighborhoods. The use of physical barriers to reinforce social barriers, of course...