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This concluding chapter revisits the book's major themes and arguments. Using a variety of examples drawn from local, state, and international political episodes, the chapter extends the book’s focus, turning especially toward the global implications of its findings and arguments. Using the frame of chocolate cities, the chapter invokes the global possibilities of seeing the world through the eyes of black people everywhere.

Drawing on Malcolm X's provocative 1964 speech "The Ballot or the Bullet," this chapter follows the insight that everywhere below Canada is the South for black Americans. This chapter also provides an overview of the book and the book's central arguments, laying the foundation for subsequent chapters.

Centering the life, music, and experiences of New Orleans–based bounce music artist Big Freedia, this chapter explores the migration stories of black people across the Black Map through the lens of hip hop music, bounce music, gender-nonconforming peoples, Hurricane Katrina, Down South, and the Deep South. Emphasizing the importance of cultural production and black music, the authors highlight the role of race, place, music, forced migration, gender, and sexual orientation in black life and politics. Focused on the connections across space and time, this chapter demonstrates the key role black power politics, natural disasters, sexuality, and regional sounds in the politics and migrations of black people throughout the chocolate cities.

Centering the life, music, and experiences of Aretha Franklin, this chapter explores the migration stories of black women across the Black Map through the lens of soul music, the Mid-South, and during the civil rights movement. Emphasizing the importance of intersectionality, the authors highlight the role of race, place, and gender in black life and politics. Focused on the connections across space and time, this chapter demonstrates the key role black music and women of color play in the politics and migrations of black people throughout the chocolate cities.

Centering the lives, experiences, and murders of transwomen activists Marsha P. Johnson and Duanna Johnson, this chapter explores the migration stories of black women across the Black Map. Emphasizing the importance of intersectionality, the authors highlight the role of race, gender violence, and homophobia in black life and politics. Focused on the connections across space and time, this chapter demonstrates the key role transwomen and women of color play in the politics and migrations of black people throughout the chocolate cities.

This chapter uses two key examples to complete the discussion of the village feature of chocolate cities. First, the life and time of great migrant Arthur Lee Robinson demonstrates the importance of place, rivers, and familial black enclaves throughout the United States. Second, the sketch "Negro Town" from the Key & Peele show illustrates the role of black imagination and density and communal space matter in black citymaking and placemaking.

This chapter begins using an intimate moment from a 1966 concert by musician Lou Rawls. Detailing the shared experiences and connections across black communities, this chapter uses Rawls’s insight to outline the six major regions of the South. This chapter completes the geographic and political sensibilities that help form the Black Map and the various regions therein. It concludes with an overview of the three-part treatment of “chocolate cities”.

Using the life and times of pioneering antilynching activist and sociologist Ida B. Wells, this chapter begins the exploration of chocolate cities as black villages. One of the defining attributes, the village illustrates how a critical mass of black people living, working, and striving alongside one another creates ripples that affect the politics and movement of black people near and far.

The second of three chapters on the power of chocolate cities, this chapter centers the lives, activism, and pioneering efforts of three black women professionals, entertainers, and community activists: Mary Hill Sanders, Dionne Warwick, and Alma Burrell. Exploring their lives, health setbacks, and push against the glass ceiling and racial oppression, the authors highlight their sophisticated and politically informed racial geography of the United States. Detailing the movement of black people throughout the domestic diaspora, this chapter illustrates the how gender, place, race, and power collided in the lives of black people before and after the civil rights movement.

The last of three chapters on the power of chocolate cities, this chapter centers the lives, activism, and pioneering efforts of Mos Def (a.k.a. Yasiin Bey) and W. E. B. Du Bois. Exploring their lives, legal setbacks, and push against global imperialism and racial oppression, the authors highlight their sophisticated and politically informed racial geography of the United States. Detailing the movement of black people throughout the domestic diaspora and into and throughout Africa, this chapter illustrates the how place, race, peace politics, and power collide in the lives of black people here, there, and everywhere around the globe.