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The New Great Migration is the demographic change from 1970 to the present, which is a reversal of the previous 60-year trend of black migration within the United States.
Since 1970, deindustrialization of cities in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, growth of jobs in the "New South" with lower costs of living, desire to reunite with family, cultural ties, the perception of lessening discrimination and religious connections have all acted to attract African Americans to the Southern United States in substantial numbers.[1][2] In 2022, the Census Bureau counted more than 5.5 million African Americans living in southern states who had been born elsewhere. The largest numbers came from New York (1.5 million) followed by Haiti, Jamaica, California, Illinois, and New Jersey. [3] Florida is the most popular destination, followed by Georgia and Texas. Those three states account for 3.1 million (almost two-thirds) of Black migrants living in the South in 2022.[4]
The reversal of the Great Migration was first noticed at the end of the 1970s. Until that decade the number of African Americans leaving the South far exceeded the number returning. But the 1980 census recorded 882,000 southern residents who had been born outside the South, an increase of more than half million in the previous decade. Since then the flow has accelerated with numbers of migrants to the South exceeding 1.5 million in each decade since 2000.[5]
African American populations have continued to drop throughout much of the Northeast, especially from the state of New York[6][7] and from northern New Jersey,[8] as they rise in the South. In Massachusetts, even though the black population saw a net increase between 2010 and 2020, the Greater Boston area lost approximately 8,800 black residents and Massachusetts lost an average of 11,700 black residents per year from 2015 to 2020, with approximately half moving to Southern states and Georgia and Florida being the most popular destinations.[9]
African Americans are moving to the suburbs.[10]
- ^ Pendergrass, Sabrina (2017). "No Longer 'Bound for the Promised Land': African Americans' Religious Experiences in the Reversal of the Great Migration" (PDF). Race and Social Problems. 9 (1): 19–28. doi:10.1007/s12552-016-9191-8. S2CID 152160225.
- ^ "A 'New Great Migration' is bringing Black Americans back to the South". 12 September 2022.
- ^ Moving South: Reversing the Great Migration 1970-2022, America's Great Migrations Project https://depts.washington.edu/moving1/black_reverse_migration.shtml
- ^ Moving South: Reversing the Great Migration 1970-2022, America's Great Migrations Project https://depts.washington.edu/moving1/black_reverse_migration.shtml
- ^ Moving South: Reversing the Great Migration 1970-2022, America's Great Migrations Project https://depts.washington.edu/moving1/black_reverse_migration.shtml
- ^ Reniqua Allen (July 8, 2017). "Racism Is Everywhere, So Why Not Move South?". The New York Times. Retrieved July 9, 2017.
- ^ Dan Bilefsky (June 21, 2011). "For New Life, Blacks in City Head to South". The New York Times. Retrieved July 9, 2017.
- ^ Dave Sheingold via The Record (February 27, 2011). "North Jersey black families leaving for lure of new South". Charleston Gazette-Mail. Retrieved July 9, 2017.
- ^ Woodard, Tiana (November 5, 2022). "Why some young Black Bostonians are choosing to move to the South". The Boston Globe. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
- ^ "Black flight to the suburbs on the rise".