Fleeing the South Only To Return

 

This is a map of Underground Railroad Routes. In many respects it could be a map of the Great Migration. Between the late 1820s and the 1860s, enslaved African Americans fled the South.  In the 1830s, the Underground Railroad was officially born and hundreds traveled northward towards midwestern or northeastern cities. Sometimes blacks had to go to Canada East or Canada West before finding safe havens. Note later in the Antebellum years, blacks fled west to Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas trying to escape the expansion of the slave trade.

About 80 years later, some of the same routes were used to escape Jim Crow oppression. This time people used the actual railroads. They took trains northward and sometimes towards the west. These migrations continued into the post-war era leaving blacks in most northeastern, midwestern, and western cities. New York, Chicago, Washington, Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Pittsburgh became the major recipients of the first waves of black arrivals.

 

History informs us that the fugitive slaves encountered racism in the North. Between 1830 and 1870, many northern cities were sites of race riots. White residents attacked African Americans and destroyed their homes and institutions. For example, there were brutal riots in New York, Cincinnati, Philadelphia. Many of the same communities suffered additional turmoil in the period between 1900 and 1920 during the era which characterized the Great Migration.  This time riots occurred in the near north like East Saint Louis and Wilmington as well as Chicago, Pittsburgh, and New York.  And during the years surrounding World War II, there was another wave of racial turmoil that reached Detroit and other cities where blacks served in the war-related industries.

However, black migration continued. Places like Denver and Kansas City saw a growth in their black populations before the turn of the century. San Francisco, which did not have many blacks before the 20th century, witnessed astronomical growth in its black populations.  In 1900, it had more blacks than any city in the west. But by 1930, more blacks lived in LA than did in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland or San Diego. 

Mistreatment was common across the nation, but everyone believed life was better in the North and West than in the South. In the years after World War II, there was another migration to the North and West. During this migration was another series of race riots and urban disturbances, but the idea that the South was the least desirable part of America still held sway. Usually labeled the "Second Great Migration", it was the ultimate African American settlement of northern, midwestern and western cities. Most researchers believe this movement ended in the 1970s and also supported a second migration to suburban communities.

However, by 2000 something changed! A reverse migration started and black people started heading southward. They were going home. This home was the New South! A better place, a place more tolerant and more integrated.

Yet, this reverse migration also revealed another trend, white people who never lived in the South started to leave northern and midwestern cities. And they were joined by a northern based Korean American population. So, why was everyone moving?

There was the old stereotype of wealthy people moving to Southern California, was it now Florida? Were people picking the less crowded Florida to escape the snow? No, that was not this story. This was something different. This movement was about affordable land, low taxes, and quality of life. But how did whites, blacks and Koreans all envision the same imagery?

I was in the barbershop, the first time I remember people talking about moving south. The barber was selling his shop and moving to Charlotte. He and his brother, also a barber, were selling their businesses, buying land and townhomes. Others in the same New Jersey community also decided to move to Charlotte. Then I heard of New York friends and families moving to Atlanta. It became easy to trace entire communities relocating as they went to the same locations - North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Again, look at the map. People went along the same historic paths down the east coast to Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. They seemed to be following jobs, who were also following low taxes and benefits. Midwesterners traveled along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to Kentucky, Tennessee,  Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.  A recent Washington Post article pointed out that numerous traditional cities with black populations witnessed a decline in their numbers and cities with smaller black populations witnessed an increase.

But why the South? What was really happening? Had southerners changed? Well, kinda!

With so many people moving to Texas, Florida, the Carolinas and Georgia the old South was now the new South. Socio-economically and racially, the percentages were different. Liberals were re-populating the South. But were they remaining liberals or were they becoming conservatives?

Greg Toppo and Paul Overberg wrote about the beginnings of this new migration in a 2015 USA Today article. They wrote: "U.S. Census Bureau statistics suggest that nearly as soon as the [Second] Great Migration ended, it began reversing". "Between 1965 and 1970, generally considered the migration's tail end, the South lost about 280,000 African-American residents. Just a decade later, between 1975 and 1980, it gained more than 100,000, a trend that has only picked up steam since. At last count, New York still had the USA's largest African-American population, but the next two states aren't Illinois and California anymore. They're Florida and Texas."

It was almost like someone flipped a switch. Most of the states that were the biggest Great Migration and Second Great Migration destinations — New York, Illinois, Michigan and California — are now among the greatest contributors to the new southern migration gains, researcher William Frey discovered.  In contrast, author Isabel Wilkerson, says not so fast! She cautions against comparing the recent movements to the Great Migration. Highlighting census data she reveals that the percentage of African-American population in the South has grown just four percentage points, from 53% to 57%, since 1970.  Yet, could the inward and outward migrations of African Americans be covering a larger pattern?  It is much clearer when you examine white migration. William Frey has found that "from 2005 to 2010, a little more than half of whites who moved from one region to another ended up in the South; meanwhile, more than two-thirds of African Americans moved to the South."  

The one area where the data could reveal a distinct pattern was the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut metropolitan area. For African Americans moving from the Northeast, between 2005 and 2010, Frey said it was 82%. Researchers contacted moving companies, realtors and the Post Office to get other forms of data. Moving companies in New Jersey pointed out that whites left New Jersey for Florida. 

And there are other blacks moving to the South as well. Africans and African Caribbeans are also selecting southern locations over northern and midwestern ones. It is not solely about climate but about perceived economic opportunities. 

But what does this really mean? If Frey and others are just partly correct, it should be a change in socio-economic and political power. However, if Wilkerson is right it suggests that the status quo will be maintained. Stay tuned for more analysis!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/02/02/census-great-migration-reversal/21818127/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/01/14/black-migration-south/

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-citylab-how-americans-moved/