The African American Urban Experience: Perspectives from the Colonial Period to the PresentFrom the early years of the African slave trade to America, blacks have lived and laboured in urban environments. Yet the transformation of rural blacks into a predominantly urban people is a relatively recent phenomenon only during World War One did African Americans move into cities in large numbers, and only during World War Two did more blacks reside in cities than in the countryside. By the early 1970s, blacks had not only made the transition