THE IMPACT OF URBAN CIVILIZATION UPON NEGRO FAMILY LIFE.

The article discusses the Negro family life in the United States. The urbanization of the Negro population during the present century has effected the most momentous change in the life of the Negro since his emancipation. During the first three decades of the twentieth century, nearly two and a half million Negroes moved from the rural South U.S. into the urban areas of the North and the South United States. Public attention has been directed to the northward movements because they were dramatized by the mass migrations to northern industrial centers during the World War I (1914-1918) whereas, the million or more Negroes who drifted into southern cities of the United States attracted little or no attention. However, the shift from country to city in both the North and the South has been accompanied by profound changes in the Negro's behavior and general outlook on life. Because of the fundamental role of the family in social organization, the study of the Negro family offers the most fruitful approach to an understanding of these important changes in the social and cultural life of the Negro.