This introductory chapter lays out a brief biography of Eugene Kinckle Jones and his work in black social reform, including his affiliation with the National Urban League (NUL). It laments the lack of scholarship on Jones's role in both the NUL and the American social-work movement. Moreover, the chapter narrows the focus of this book—not to the NUL in particular—but to Jones and his role in the professionalization of black social work, in order to increase our understanding of the “urban black experience”—the processes of migration and of migrants becoming black urbanites. The chapter furthermore attempts to illustrate how social work as a profession engaged black Americans and how it was administered during its infancy. It then closes with a brief overview of the following chapters.
