Which US cities had the highest violent crime rates in majority-Black neighborhoods in 2025?

1. What the sources actually say about Black neighborhoods and violent crime

Multiple peer-reviewed and institutional accounts conclude that neighborhoods with higher proportions of Black residents experience higher exposure to violent crime and gun homicides. A Wharton study using Gun Violence Archive and American Community Survey data found that, among middle‑class neighborhoods, predominantly Black neighborhoods had more than four times the gun‑homicide rate of predominantly white neighborhoods of similar socioeconomic status ^[1]. Mobility‑data research in Chicago shows a positive association between a neighborhood’s Black population share and residents’ everyday exposure to violent crime ^[2]. Advocacy groups and researchers document higher firearm homicide rates and disproportionate victimization of Black Americans in national datasets ^{[4] [3]}.

2. What the sources do not provide: the missing city‑by‑city list

None of the provided sources produce a ranked list of U.S. cities showing which had the highest violent‑crime rates specifically in majority‑Black neighborhoods for 2025. National and topical reports analyze patterns (e.g., gun homicides, exposure, arrest shares) and causes (segregation, concentrated disadvantage), but a city‑level 2025 ranking for majority‑Black neighborhoods is not included in the supplied material (not found in current reporting).

3. Why a simple city ranking would be misleading without careful method

Scholars caution that neighborhood violent‑crime rates reflect structural factors — concentrated poverty, segregation, policing patterns, education and resource gaps — not race alone ^{[5] [6]}. Studies emphasize that comparators matter: some research controls for neighborhood socioeconomic status and still finds disparities ^[1], while other work shows that concentrated disadvantage explains much of the variation ^[6]. Producing a clean city ranking requires standardized definitions (what counts as a “majority‑Black neighborhood”), consistent crime measures (violent crime vs. gun homicide), and comparable time frames — none of which are supplied in these sources ^{[2] [1]}.

4. Competing explanations in the literature

Sources offer two competing but complementary narratives. One strand links higher violence in Black neighborhoods to structural disadvantage and historic segregation — redlining, disinvestment, limited access to resources — that create conditions for higher crime regardless of race ^{[5] [6]}. Another line of research finds persistent disparities even after matching on socioeconomic status, suggesting additional mechanisms tied to segregation, policing practices, and neighborhood context that raise risk in Black neighborhoods ^{[1] [2]}. Both perspectives appear in the supplied reporting and scholarship ^{[5] [1] [2]}.

5. Policy and framing implications journalists should note

Framing crime as a racial problem without context risks reinforcing stereotypes; several sources warn media narratives about “Black‑on‑Black” violence obscure structural drivers and the role of segregation and poverty ^{[5] [7]}. Advocacy and research groups call attention to disproportionate victimization (including by police) and to the public‑health toll of gun violence in Black communities — facts that demand policies addressing investment, policing practices, and gun violence prevention, not only criminal‑justice responses ^{[3] [4] [1]}.

6. If you need a precise city ranking: how to proceed

To produce the list you asked for, one must assemble city‑level crime incident data (violent crimes and/or gun homicides) mapped to census tract or neighborhood racial composition, then compute rates per population and rank only those tracts where Black residents form a majority. The current corpus contains examples of the methodology (use of Gun Violence Archive, American Community Survey, and local police/crime reports) but does not include the raw, city‑level rankings for 2025 ^{[1] [2]}. Available sources do not mention a completed, authoritative 2025 city ranking.

Limitations: This analysis relies only on the documents you provided. I do not claim or refute city rankings beyond what those sources report; for a defensible list, local crime data and demographic mapping must be combined as described ^{[1] [2]}.