Ambivalent Friends

"By assembling in one volume several chapters in the story of the response of black Americans to the millions of immigrants who arrived on the nation's shores from 1880 to 1935, Arnold Shankman [has] made a major contribution to the study of American immigrant history and race relations. ... [He provides] a carefully researched and constructed counterbalance to the traditional accounts of American reactions to aliens which focus on the view of but one sector of the heterogeneous citizenry.... The author's use of secular Afro-American newspapers and journals and of charts showing population trends of blacks and immigrants is outstanding. Likewise, he has carefully explored and utilized secondary sources, providing the non-specialist with the background to understand the dynamics of black-immigrant interaction. ... Arnold Shankman's ably researched, documented, and written book helps fill major gaps in the study of immigrant and Afro-American history."-Journal of American Ethnic History