Roxbury is described by Malcolm X.

In his Autobiography, he subsequently writes of the Sugar Hill section, “I didn’t know the world contained as many Negroes as I saw thronging downtown Roxbury at night. . . acting and living differently from any black people I’d ever dreamed of in my life. This was the snooty black neighborhood; they called themselves the ‘Four Hundred’ and looked down their noses on the Negroes of the black ghetto, the so-called “town” section where May, my other half-sister lived. They prided themselves on being incomparably more ‘cultured, cultivated and dignified’ . . . these Hill Negroes were breaking their backs trying to imitate whites.” After staying briefly, Malcolm X returns to live in the city in 1941.*