Black Flight From Detroit

     Over a hundred years ago black Americans began migrating to the north for job opportunities, and in 1910 there were already 6,000 black residents in Detroit, in 1940 there were 100,000, in 1950 there were 200,000, and by 1970 there were 660,000 black residents in Detroit. The period from 1910 to 1970 that saw a total of 6 million rural blacks leave Southern States for the north is called the Great Migration or the Great Northern Migration. 

     World War 2 provided even more jobs in Detroit as Ford and the other Detroit car companies switched to building military equipment. But during the war and throughout the 1940s the big 3 automakers built 25 new plants in former farmland outside of Detroit, and while there were jobs there, community standards kept blacks from moving near the new factories, and even commuting through white suburbs was risky.

     The population of Detroit reached 1.8 million in 1950 with 1.5 million white residents, but the closure of the Packard plant and the downsizing of the remaining auto plants inside Detroit's city limits meant that more than 700,000 white residents had left Detroit for the suburbs by 1970, which led to fewer and fewer jobs for blacks in Detroit. Despite this, Detroit had become a Beacon City in the North and the Great Northern Migration of blacks from the South would continue until 1970, and between 1950 and 1970 460,000 blacks moved to Detroit.

     Then there was the riot in 1967, and, "white flight," began, by the year 2000 another 700,000 white residents had left Detroit for the surrounding suburbs. Detroit's black population hovered at around 775,000, from 1980 to 2000, and then for the first time, "black flight," began along with white flight, and over the next 20 years more than 279,000 blacks left Detroit, more than 1/3 of all of Detroit's black residents, and not all of them moved to the surrounding suburbs like during white flight. The 2020 census shows 639,000 total residents of Detroit, with only 68,000 white residents and 496,000 black residents, down from its peak of 1.8 million in 1950.

     The promise of jobs in the North may have been true from 1900 through 1950, but Detroit hasn't offered anything in the way of good jobs since 1970, and has experienced generations of poverty with no hope of recovery. However, the South is thriving, Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston and other Southern cities are new Beacon Cities. There is a new Promised Land in America, and this time it is called the South, where it is warm, the people are friendly, and jobs are plentiful. Atlanta, Charlotte, and other Southern cities are experiencing a renaissance as more talented blacks move back to the South, reversing the Great Northern Migration their grandparents or great grandparents made to the North.