Geography Reference
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The Development, Persistence,
and Change of Racial Segregation
in U.S. Urban Areas, 1880-2010
Andrew A. Beveridge
Dubbed the “Great Migr ation,” the movement of the
African American population in the United States from the mostly ag-
ricultural areas of the South to the cities and metropolitan areas in the
North is one of the major population shifts that shaped the United States
in the twentieth century. 1 After the Civil War ended, so-called Jim Crow
laws subjected African Americans in the South to second-class citizen-
ship. Many of the common rights of U.S. citizens were denied, including
the rights to vote, hold property, and marry freely. To escape this seg-
regated regime, many blacks began to move to the North. A recent and
widely noted chronicle of the Great Migration pegs it as occurring dur-
ing the period from 1915 to 1970, when six million African Americans left
the South for cities in the Northeast, Midwest, and West. Indeed, though
substantial before the World War II, this migration increased again after
1950, when a significant number of African Americans began to be seen
in many of the cities in the North. 2 However, instead of finding equal-
ity in the North, African Americans were relegated to segregated living
areas with inadequate schools and diminished economic opportunities.
hese paterns were enforced by both law and custom. African Ameri-
cans were also denied full equality in other realms, including housing,
transportation, and education. 3
Using relatively newly available data, this essay traces the changing
paterns of African American and white residence in U.S. cities both
before and after this massive population redistribution. Though African
Americans were closer to equal in the North, where they did not suffer
the brunt of the “Jim Crow” system of the South, nonetheless they were
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