Children in front of a kitchenette apartment building in the Black Belt

Wright called the children of the black sharecroppers "the first-born of the city tenements"; they were African Americans " as they were becoming." in 12 Million Black Voices, the author draws on his personal experience as a southern migrant and his study of sociological concepts to create an original expression of black national consciousness. In a contemporary review, Cayton praised Wright's book as "magnificent in its simplicity, directness and force... a philosophy of the history of the Negro in America and a frame of reference for the study of Negro-white relations."