St. Clair Drake was one of the most
influential pioneers in sociology. In the
1940s he and Horace R. Cayton drew
upon the research of the Works Progress
Administration to produce the
groundbreaking work,
Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life
in a Northern City. This landmark book
intimately examined the workings of the
African-American "metropolis within a
metropolis" on Chicago's South Side during
the late 1930s. It has influenced generations
of scholars.

Drake lived at 510 West Chestnut Street when he became a professor of sociology at Roosevelt College (now University) in 1946. At Roosevelt, he developed one of the first African Studies programs in the U.S. When he left for California, Drake would create the Afro-American Studies Department at Stanford University.

A prolific chronicler of strife and advances in race relations during the 1960s as well as the author of Black Folk Here and There (1987), Drake founded the American Society for African Culture and served as adviser to the first prime minister of Ghana.