Notes that it is widely accepted that millions of blacks who migrated from the South contributed significantly to the decline of black rural land ownership. However, the less than altruistic behavior patterns of land officials has also contributed to the loss of rural land by blacks. (Author/AM)

The research reported in this paper is concerned with: the continued shrinkage of the area commonly known as the Southern black belt -- counties in the old South having a major proportion of their populations consisting of Negroes -- up until 1970; the recent role migration has played in black population loss; and the probable effects of lengthy…

Comprises "The Underclass and the Great Migration" (N. Lemann) and "The Migrants' Tale and Ghetto Culture" (D. Whitman). Lemann's book "The Promised Land" discusses the Black migration to northern U.S. states. Whitman argues that Lemann exaggerates the Black sharecropper's contribution to the development of the…