Abstract
By some accounts, large Black populations in northern cities aided Blacks’ employment in occupations of the “Black Metropolis” at the start of the Great Migration. Yet, the present study, analyzing Census data, refutes these accounts. Blacks’ odds of employment in such occupations – for example, mass media and cultural expression – were often greatest in major northern cities with the smallest Black populations, consistent with the proposition that small and stable minority communities avoid intense discrimination. Overall, however, there is little evidence that Black population size substantially affected Blacks’ employment in Black Metropolis occupations.