Increasingly, African-Americans are migrating to Southern cities to search for better opportunities, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data.
Atlanta, Ga., Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte, N.C. and Dallas, Tex. are among the destinations of choice for Blacks, according to census officials. As a result of population shifting now underway, 67 percent of Black Americans now live in the South, the largest proportion since the 1960s.
“This is the decade of Black flight,” said Mr. Frey. “It’s a new age for African-Americans. It’s long overdue, but it seems to be happening.”.
Why? Money plays a big role. “This is all about employment and job growth,” James Gimple, a professor of Government at the University of Maryland told WNYC Radio in New York. “Labor markets, even in the recession, southern states have been faring better than North, East and Midwest. That’s also true of state governments. Black populations are no different than White populations or anyone else. They can see that employment prospects are going to be better in one location than another.”
The result is that Atlanta has passed Chicago as the U.S. town with the second largest concentration of Blacks.. And while New York City still is called home by more Black Americans than any other place in the nation, demographers noted a two percent drop in the number of Black New Yorkers since the 2000 census.
And that’s just part of the New York exodus. According to Census figures, 17 percent of Blacks who went south came from the entire Empire State.
The data also shows that more than 1 million Black southerners were born in the northeast, a tenfold increase in that category since 1970.