The New South and Black Economic and Political Development: Changes From 1970 To 1980

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Tr HE 20TH CENTURY has witnessed a profound shift in the regional concentration of black Americans. Beginning the century as a population overwhelmingly located in rural areas of the South, by 1970 the great majority of black Americans resided in the larger metropolitan areas outside the states of the Old Confederacy. Indeed, the northward migration beginning about 1900 represents one of the most remarkable population movements in American history. The transfer of population from the rural South to the urban North was stimulated largely by the desire of blacks to improve their economic and political conditions. The earlier migration to northeastern states was followed by emigration from the South to selected manufacturing centers of the midwest. Migration continued through each decade and well into the post-World War II era. By 1960, trends had resulted in a concentration of blacks in most of the nation's urban centers outside the South (Rose 1971). Blacks leaving the South were doubtless motivated by a belief, later confirmed by various social science research efforts, that the South was less satisfactory than other regions of the nation in promoting black economic and political development. No area of the nation had avoided the tragedy of racism; yet the open, often legal, and extreme acts of racial discrimination including lynching, Jim Crow legislation, rigid segregation, and overt violence were more frequent in the South (Lewinson 1932; Key 1949). Opposition to the simplest forms of black electoral participation and political organization continued in the South well into the 1960s (Matthews and Prothro 1966). Furthermore, research over the past decade confirms the on-going nature of problems in the South. For example, there have been findings that black public-sector employment is less equitable in the South than elsewhere (Sigelman 1976); there is less proportional black representation on city councils in the South (Jones 1976; Karnig 1976; 1979a; Engstrom and McDonald 1982); there is less likelihood of a black mayor in the South (Marshall and Meyer 1975; Karnig and Welch 1980); and Census reports have shown consistently that black economic and education levels are lower in the South. Indeed, in a study focused largely on