ABSTRACT
Ethnic group membership powerfully influences the perspectives and practices of the residents of African towns. During the period of colonial rule, administrative policies structured race relations in African towns.” In most African towns, strangers are made up of representatives from several ethnic groups and the same is true of the indigenes. Although most African towns began their growth as the result of European contact and therefore do not have “native oldtimers,” the towns were sited on land occupied or claimed by one or a few ethnic groups. Europeans were the first relatively permanent residents in many of what are the towns of Black Africa. In the towns of Black Africa people tend to reside, associate, and work with their “own kind Urban ethnicity is often expressed by the formation of ethnic enclaves and semiautonomous networks of interaction coterminous with them; this pattern is more predominant in towns where there are no administrative controls over place of residence.
