ABSTRACT
Social history can almost be defined as historical research informed by social conscience, although a logjam of statistical tables and charts frequently halts the discourse. At its very best, the intellectual and the emotional dimension are equally activated and engaged. Black social history is infused in particular with pride and anger. Scholarly arguments are no less cogent by necessity for being impassioned; but in its tenor, the literature of black social history reads as if it is finding a voice of its own analogous to that of the people it studies. Black social historians therefore seek documentary and/ or material evidence that in some way captures the thoughts and beliefs of people who have been written out of history. The unacknowledged truism that the writing of history reflects a scholar’s own time as much as the period discussed finds confirmation in the work of current social and urban historians.
