AHC: "Great Migration" increased so that only 25% of African-Americans live south at its end

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
The real figures were that after the Great Migration petered out in the 1970s, 53% of blacks were still in the south.
 
The real figures were that after the Great Migration petered out in the 1970s, 53% of blacks were still in the south.
You’d probably see a faster reverse in black migration compared to today’s New Great Migration. I have a feeling that there might be a more Northern-focused Civil Rights Movement that is more radicalized.
 
Maybe offset that by less White migration from the South? And/or less of one or another European migrant group in that era?

The problems besetting southern agriculture (the boll weevil, the decline in cotton prices, mechanization displacing farmers, etc.) affected whites as well as blacks. And factory jobs in the North--especially in the growing auto industry in Detroit in the 1920's and the related defense industry during World War II--attracted whites as well as blacks. So it is hard to see a situation where no whites move out of the South. As for less European immigration, the Great Migration started when the First World War largely cut off the flow of European immigrants--and a few years after the War, congressional legislation severely limited it for decades. So it's hard for me to see much less European immigration than in OTL.
 
Last edited:
The real figures were that after the Great Migration petered out in the 1970s, 53% of blacks were still in the south.

This is really difficult. Just about every black family I know has deep ties to the South going back generations. Those who did go north tended to be younger and of prime working age for factory-type work; older people tended to stay behind as migration for them was not really economically viable. I think it's possible to get more people out of the South, but 25% is probably a bridge or two too far to be plausible.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Okay- how could we get it so that only 40% of American blacks are left in the south at the end of the great migration?
 
Okay- how could we get it so that only 40% of American blacks are left in the south at the end of the great migration?

Equal wages and hiring. Almost everyone who left the South and Appalachia did so because of economic necessity, black or white. The same patterns in black migration are mirrored in the movements of people out of Appalachia. If you want to increase the levels of movement, change hiring practices so that blacks are hired on the same as whites and with the same pay. As word spreads, more people will leave.
 
Freedman's bureau survives, increased education in the south leads to newly literate southerners of both races moving north circa 1880s.
 
Freedman's bureau survives, increased education in the south leads to newly literate southerners of both races moving north circa 1880s.

Oh, if you're going to go for an early POD, much earlier immigration restrictions would have led to more black migration to the North. But this is a post-1900 section, so I didn't think an early POD was acceptable.

If we take 1900 as the earliest POD, what would be the effect of immigration restrictions enacted then? There was actually an article on this, "When the Tide Turned: Immigration and the Delay of the Great Black Migration" by William J. Collins, The Journal of Economic History, Vol.57, No. 3. (Sep., 1997), pp. 607-632. I discuss it at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/GnvUGkffCzg/JVHLJQIey_sJ As noted there, Collins writes, "Finally, suppose immigration quotas had been established in 1900 at 165,000 immigrants per year; also suppose that all of these immigrants would have located in the set of northern states employed in this study. Between 1900 and 1910 the immigration rate would have been 49.87 compared to
the actual rate of 106.85, implying, ceteris paribus, that more than 150,000 more black migrants would have moved north in that decade with earlier immigration quotas, an enormous addition to the 161,000 who actually did move. Supposing instead that foreign immigration had been banned altogether in 1900, then 295,000 more blacks might have migrated than in the free immigration case. *Indeed, it appears that the Great Migration could have been greater and occurred earlier had there been controls on foreign immigration before the 1920s.* [emphasis in original]"
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Oh, if you're going to go for an early POD, much earlier immigration restrictions would have led to more black migration to the North. But this is a post-1900 section, so I didn't think an early POD was acceptable.

If we take 1900 as the earliest POD, what would be the effect of immigration restrictions enacted then? There was actually an article on this, "When the Tide Turned: Immigration and the Delay of the Great Black Migration" by William J. Collins, The Journal of Economic History, Vol.57, No. 3. (Sep., 1997), pp. 607-632. I discuss it at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/GnvUGkffCzg/JVHLJQIey_sJ As noted there, Collins writes, "Finally, suppose immigration quotas had been established in 1900 at 165,000 immigrants per year; also suppose that all of these immigrants would have located in the set of northern states employed in this study. Between 1900 and 1910 the immigration rate would have been 49.87 compared to
the actual rate of 106.85, implying, ceteris paribus, that more than 150,000 more black migrants would have moved north in that decade with earlier immigration quotas, an enormous addition to the 161,000 who actually did move. Supposing instead that foreign immigration had been banned altogether in 1900, then 295,000 more blacks might have migrated than in the free immigration case. *Indeed, it appears that the Great Migration could have been greater and occurred earlier had there been controls on foreign immigration before the 1920s.* [emphasis in original]"

But David - was anybody of political consequence proposing such blanket restrictions in the late 19th century or 1900?

For all their anti-immigrant fervor, all the "Know-Nothing" Party of the mid-19th century wanted to do was slow down naturalization and political participation by immigrants. They never suggested a quota system or absolute limit on numbers. I don't know why. Perhaps pre-Civil War such an idea was inconceivable given laissez-faire assumptions about the economy?
 
Top