Black Migration Reversal in the United States

Abstract

After almost a century of net out-migration of blacks from the South to other regions the South experienced a net in-migration of blacks during the 1970s a trend that continues in the 1980s. This study examines this reversal at a regional and subregional scale by examining black interstate migration flows. The majority of southern states experienced the black migration reversal during the 1970s. Only the District of Columbia Alabama Mississippi Arkansas and Louisiana recorded net out-migration by blacks 1975-1980. Thus net migration trends at the state level demonstrate that the black migration reversal is occurring throughout the South and the North although its magnitude varies by state. This study examines 2 periods of channelized black migration streams to and from southern states: 1965-1970 and 1975-1980. The author uses transaction-flow analysis to isolate salient movements of blacks between southern and nonsouthern states. Salient flows are identified by comparing the actual flow black migrants between each pair of states to the expected flow based on an indifference model. Results show that 1) channelized flows from the South have strong geographical patterns and 2) the number of salient streams from the South to the Northeast declined significantly between 1965-1970 and 1975-1980. In the late 1960s only 10 counterstreams had sufficient importance to register as salient flows in the black interstate migration system. By the late 1970s the number of southward salient streams had risen to 21. Of the estimated 171176 blacks who migrated to the South between 1965-1970 74735 or 43.7% were returning. Between 1975 and 1980 the figures were 142360 of 438760 moving blacks or 32.4%. New York represented the most important source of southward net in-migration in the 1970s. At the regional level the southern shift to net in-migration by blacks is attributable to social and economic forces that exert pushes and pulls in the migration system. At the subregional level the black migration reversal is occurring within channelized pathways that link specific southern and northern states.