Marcy S. Sacks' book is a welcome addition to African-American urban history. Sacks, associate professor of history at Albion College, posits that New York City's diverse African-American population established a vibrant community at the turn of the twentieth century. She focuses her study on the period of 1880 to 1915, exploring the ways in which New Yorkers – both black and white – responded to the explosion of an urban black population during that period. Through an examination of the ‘internal workings of urban black populations’ (p. 7), Sacks investigates the role blacks played in the formation of Harlem in the late nineteenth century and how they grappled with the increasing racism of the city's white population. This represents an effort to complicate previous studies that have focused on the creation of urban ghettoes yet assumed that blacks were not actors who attempted to improve their lot at a time of ‘racial retrenchment’ in the North (p. 8).

The book is organized thematically, exploring issues such as migration, employment, housing, family life and community building. Sacks relies on source material from newspapers, family histories, police reports, the census and records from public and private agencies. Sacks' overarching argument is that blacks forged a strong community in spite of the fact that they resided in New York City during the nadir of race relations. Moreover, she contends that the black community itself struggled under the weight of increasing diversity and tensions between various groups, including migrants from the South, immigrants from the Caribbean and long-standing New York City residents. In spite of these challenges, African-American New Yorkers created a vibrant community that would soon become the epicentre of black arts and literature during the Harlem Renaissance. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is Sacks' examination of tensions between Caribbean and American blacks. While scholars have explored the friction between northern-born blacks and southern immigrants arriving during the Great Migration, Sacks illustrates that New York City's black population also experienced strains with its Caribbean immigrants. She argues that immigration policies allowed only the most elite Caribbean immigrants to enter the USA. As anti-black racism increased during this period, Sacks points out that whites tended to treat Caribbean immigrants better than native-born blacks, perhaps because of their education, wealth or accents.

One weakness of Sacks' study is that it is somewhat uneven in balancing the discussion of the racism that blacks faced while still arguing that they had enough agency to forge a strong community. Much of the book emphasizes the tremendous hardships facing the city's black population, including housing discrimination, a decline in job opportunities and the challenges of keeping families together. It is not until the final chapter that Sacks revisits her argument that black New Yorkers managed to create a strong community in spite of the challenges that they faced. This criticism aside, Sacks has written an interesting and important book about one of the country's most significant African-American populations.