Nicholas Lemann and Black Migration

In The Promised Land Nicholas Lemann investigates the effects that the great black migration to the northern cities had on American Society. Lemann's purpose in the book is to identify the roots of current problems in urban ghettos, determine why earlier attempts to solve the problems failed, and suggest alternative approaches to America's largest social problem. He believes that any new policies need to be based on a strong grasp of historic social causes, knowledge of past policies' failures and successes, and an understanding of the experiences of the people who took part in the migration and whose lives were part of the development of both the black ghetto and the black middle class after World War II. Lemann's analysis of social policy and the nature of the problem of the black ghettos leads him to the conclusion that the federal government is the only institution large enough to address the problem. Previous attempts, such as the War on Poverty, were never more than partially successful--either because they were not extensive enough, because they did not understand the causes of the social breakdown in the ghettos, or because they depended on the idea of community-based empowerment and self-development, which never works since those who achieve higher economic status always leave the ghettos as soon as possible. It is the complete and always growing isolation of the poor, in ghettos where they have little chance of obtaining jobs or a decent education, that allows

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at the problem was and what the reaction to it should be" (99). Lemann begins by setting up the origins of the problem as he sees them. The social disorganization that led to the problems of the black ghettos first developed under the sharecropping system. Lemann agrees with historians who refuted the idea that it was slavery that caused the type of disruption of black families and society that was carried north in the great migration. He uses his biographical examples to illustrate this. Ruby Daniels, for example, came from a very poor sharecropping family and the conditions of her life in Chicago mirrored the lives her family had led in the Delta. But George Hicks, who had a great deal more education and came from a more affluent background (though still a poor one), did very well--rising to the middle class by working for the federal government programs (such as housing) that were designed to help poor blacks. This is one of Lemann's basic points--that the differences in success for many black migrants were based on "the differences in their experiences before they ever got to Chicago" (287). For Lemann it is the success of African Americans such as George Hicks, who made full use of the job opportunities offered by f

Category: History - N