African-Americans And The Reverse Migration

African-Americans moving back, South. We’ll look at why, and the lives they’re making.

A century ago, 90 percent of African-Americans lived in the American South – and had for a long, hard time. With the civil rights era and the postwar industrial boom, American blacks went north in huge numbers.

They called it the Great Migration. Chicago, Detroit and more exploded with African-American populations and culture. Now, it’s the great reversal.

New census numbers show African-Americans headed South again. The highest percentage now live in the South since 1960. It’s a big, remarkable shift.

This hour On Point: African-Americans, headed south, again.
- Tom Ashbrook
Guests:

Isabel Wilkerson, professor of journalism at Boston University and author of "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration."

David Wall Rice, professor of psychology and director of the Identity Orchestration Research Lab at Morehouse College.