1. The spreading shadow: the growth and nature of urban black population – 2. The most laborious and least profitable employment: urban free black occupational patterns – 3. A stake in society: property ownership among urban blacks – 4. Lofts, garrets, and cellars, in blind alleys and narrow courts: urban black housing and residential patterns – 5. A wholly-distinct and an outcast class: discrimination, subordination, segregation, oppression, and exclusion – 6. Race riot: prejudice explodes – 7. An indolent, disorderly, and corrupt population: black crime and vice in the city – 8. The poor you always have with you: black poverty and urban welfare – 9. Black is for mourning: urban negro mortality – 10. The substance of things hoped for: urban black education – 11. Unity through separation: the negro church in the city – 12. Fruits of discrimination, seeds of community: associational activities of urban blacks – 13. Am I not a man? Black participation and protest.
