'Negro stranger in our midst': Origins of African American criminality in the urban north, 1900--1940 (Pennsylvania)

This dissertation explores the history of debates about black criminality during the first four decades of the twentieth century, an era in which American society developed many of its modern notions about the origins and character of crime, as well as modern views about the relationship between race and criminality. This study traces the emergence of the use of crime statistics as an essential component of racial ideology as it changed over time. In the context of black migration to northern cities, in general, and Philadelphia, in particular, my research (using a wide range of sources, including social science literature, settlement house annual reports, newspapers, police reports, court transcripts, mayoral papers, and the personal papers of black reformers) illustrates the various ways in which evidence of high rates of crime among blacks was used not only as "scientific" proof of black inferiority, but also as a cautionary tale of the dangers of racial liberalism. The story of African Americans' rhetorical and programmatic responses to crime and criminality, moreover, reveals how blacks themselves contributed to, and challenged, the constitution of crime as the "Negro problem."; New ideas about crime as a racial problem were born in this era, with far-reaching implications for past and present debates about black inequality, social policy, law enforcement and incarceration, and many other aspects of modern American society. In particular, four major areas affecting the development of northern African American communities before, during and after the Great Migration are analyzed here: first, in the studying of crime among blacks as a study of black inferiority; second, in the segregating and excluding of blacks from crime prevention among social welfare agencies; third, in the criminalizing of black self-defense against racial attacks; and fourth, in the arbitrary, corrupt, and violent policing of black communities.; Ultimately, Negro Stranger in Our Midst reveals how debates about black criminality significantly shaped the course of social, economic, and political progress for African Americans during the first half of the twentieth-century, and indeed established ways of thinking about crime and race that endure in modern discourse.