The primary goal of this study was to make an accurate and meaningful statement regarding the system of race relations in the City of Monroe, Michigan from 1900 to 1915. This effort analyzed, assessed and described the quality of Afro-American existence in Monroe from economic, social and biographical perspectives during the progressive era.A real shortage in traditional primary data, i.e., manuscript collections and family papers, required that the black-white experience in Monroe be approached on several levels and from several perspectives. First, a cliometric approach was employed in describing and analyzing the demographic, economic, and political past of Monroe's Afro-Americans. The major sources used were: The Population Schedules for Monroe of the Decennial United States' Censuses from 1840 to 1880; various United States Census publications from 1810 to 1930; population censuses taken every tenth year by the State of Michigan from 1854 to 1904; City Directories for Monroe from 1860 to 1930, and election returns on the issue of equal suffrage in Michigan in 1850, 1868, and 1870.Second, the methods and insights of social and intellectual historians were used in developing and discussing the impact of the two major national racial stereotypes, the child-Negro and the beast Negro, on Monroe. Information related in local press items demonstrated how each of these social identities achieved reality in the normative structure of race relations in Monroe. The newspapers researched included: Monroe Democrat 1900-1915; Monroe Record 19001904; Monroe Commercial 1900-1904; Record-Commercial 1904-1915, and the Monroe Bulletin 1908-1915.Third, biography and family history served to bind the generalizations to a more intimate level of existence. Inferences drawn from a variety of sources aided in reconstructing the ego, personal, and social identities of several native Monroe Negroes. An extensive oral history, Recollections of Life in Monroe County, and interviews conducted by the researcher, helped expand and verify material of this nature.Finally, normative sociological theory, as interwoven throughout the text, provided the structure to make the project a coherent whole.The major findings were as follows:1. A highly developed system of residential segregationdid not exist in Monroe before the 1920s.2. Afro-American males, who were perennial residents ofMonroe, usually had occupations which provided for areasonable standard of living.3. Nineteenth century Monroe whites preferred to exclude blacks from the political process. 4.Monroe citizens learned about negative racial stereotypes from nationwide communication networks. Monroe was very much within the mainstream of American Culture.5.Monroe's inhabitants celebrated the child-Negro social identity in their jokes, minstrel shows, and in their encounters with non-threatening Negroes.6. The beast-Negro image in Monroe was associated with crimes committed by blacks--Afro-American misbehavior. Negroes were discriminated against in being suspected of crimes. But once a case entered Monroe's criminal justice system, black and white defendants were treated in similar fashion.7. Blacks in Monroe could select their own personal identities. Some matched their behavior and personality with the child-Negro stereotype; one family acted white; and at least one individual grasped his "negritude" while rejecting his social identity.8. A viable personal identity for a Negro in Monroe meant economic solvency, but not much more.9. The ego identities and subjective needs of Monroe's Afro-Americans were largely unsatisfied. Blacks were never an integral part of the larger community. This fact helps explain the Negro desertion of Monroe in the early twentieth century.10. Monroe citizens typically confused the racial stereotypes with reality and demanded that their blacks remain child-men. The negative social identities of Afro-Americans were more potent than the personal identities of Monroe's native Negroes. Few new black citizens opted to move into this situation between 1900 and 1915.