Abstract: | From early in the nineteenth century Southern whites often analyzed the ills of the South as originating in the region’s colonial relation to the North. A survey of black economic thought, academic, journalistic and political, suggests that this notion was never strongly endorsed by black intellectuals. The outstanding exceptions were works by black sociologists collaborating with white colleagues in the 1930s. For the most part, however, black writers subscribed to a view that emphasized the dependent nature, not of the South, but of the economy of the black community in its relations with the South. |