The urban Black underclass can be traced to the sharecropper South of a generation ago. The propagation of underclass culture has been hastened by an exodus of working class Blacks from the ghettos. Interviews with urban and rural Blacks help identify the problems of the underclass. (Author)

The problems that now seem overbearing in the ghettos--out of wedlock childbearing, unemployment, crime, poor educational achievement--have existed in the ghettos for more than half a century. Anecdotal material from a Chicago project highlight these conditions. Federal efforts must focus on helping individuals to escape. (Author)

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…