Good evening, everyone. Thank you. All graze
on the director. The program here to Virginia Tech
. This will be a lasting song. You mix
out? Yeah, with us tonight. We had
okay, sociology and that kind of study. Yeah
, Mhm. Uh, she has her your bachelor's
work person, and then her creation. Okay,
Harvard University first made in credentials. And there you
have it. So without further ado, I'll turn
it over to her. Yeah. Thank you so
much for that introduction, Ellington. And thank you
all. Um, for the opportunity to be here
for this series. I think the black lives in
the new South, Um, is kind of a
visionary, um, type of space, uh,
to have here at Virginia Tech. Um, it's
underappreciated topic understudied topic, and I'm excited to be
able to contribute and be a part of it.
So today's talk is going to have three parts.
Um, in the first part, I want to
motivate and give you an overview of a research study
that I've undertaken over the past few years. In
part two, I'll focus on one of the specific
questions that I addressed in the study and that's related
to the title of this talk dilemmas of race and
region. In Part three, I'll give you a
sense of a broader agenda for future research. But
first, let me motivate and give you an overview
of the overall project. So starting around World War
One, a significant demographic shift began to occur in
the United States. African Americans began leaving rural and
urban areas in the South to move to cities in
the Northeast, Midwest and West. More than five
million black Southerners would migrate over the next several decades
. In this movement, which scholars have called the
great migration, blacks were moving to fill job openings
produced by World War One and World War two,
and by a decline in European immigration. They are
responding to the increasing mechanization of agriculture and natural disasters
that affected their job opportunities in the South. They
were also fleeing racial violence in the racial caste system
in the South. Overall, about 90% of blacks
were living in the south at the turn of the
century and in 1910. But by the end of
the century, only about 53% of blacks were living
in this region. As the migration went on,
however, it began to slow, and in 1970
it began to reverse. This graph demonstrates black net
migrations for US regions between 19 72,005. Each group
of bars represents a region, and each bar from
left to right within each group represents the net migration
for a five year time period. As you can
see, African Americans are leaving cities in the Northeast
Midwest and more recently the West and have now generated
a net in migration to the US South. But
what do we know about this reversal? Well,
we know about its volume based on analysis of US
Census data such as the graph I just showed and
through the work of scholars like William Fry, we
know about its direction that blacks are moving to the
suburbs, but also to the South, both rural
and urban areas. We know about its selectivity that
younger, single female, highly educated African Americans are
more likely to move. But we know less about
what the reversal means for the migrants themselves. What
is their migration process? What meanings do they give
to it? There is one exception. We have
an ethnographic study by Carol Stack her book called to
Home, that gives us insight into the experiences of
Southern born blacks who are literally returning to the South
during the 19 seventies and 19 eighties. She focuses
especially on the role of family and home place ties
to the South for these Southern rooted migrants. But
as I looked at the state of our literature,
I saw that there are many questions to which we
still don't have answers and their entire streams of black
migrants to the south, about which we know little
. So in 2000 and seven, I began a
research project to investigate some of these issues. I
undertook a narrative in depth interview study of non Southern
born African American migrants to the urban South, a
group whose migration journeys we know little about. In
contrast to what we can get from census data.
The project focuses especially on how people experience the internal
migration process. While sociology has produced a vibrant literature
for the case of international migration, the study of
internal migration is less developed. I think some of
this is because the micro level processes of internal migration
can be much more subtle relative to the case of
international migration striptease. In studying the internal migration process
, I examined several aspects, including analyzing the socioeconomic
opportunities that blacks are considering as they move to the
South. The most salient of these in the project
were jobs, cost of housing and distressed neighborhoods.
The project also examines the social aspects of internal migration
, especially how social networks and black institutions facilitate migration
. The project studies the role of culture in the
internal migration process, especially probe inductive findings about how
religion and cultural styles tied to regional identities of being
a northerner or southerner shaped their migration journeys In looking
at the meanings and the processes of internal migration,
however, I also examine how they vary for middle
class compared to working class blacks, for men relative
to women and by generation time does not permit me
to share about the overall project in this presentation.
But today, as I move into Part two,
I want to focus on one specific piece of the
project, the issue of dilemmas of race and region
. I hope the analysis will give you a sense
of the overall project to move us into this section
. I'd like to introduce you to David, a
50 year old African American man I interviewed in November
2000 and eight, David works as a customer service
representative. He was born and raised in Brooklyn,
New York, and claims to bleed pinstripes of the
New York Yankees, David had once told his mother
while living in Brooklyn, Dad, I'm never going
down South, he would explain. I was born
in 1958. So when you're a little kid and
you see all of this water hose stuff and how
their wedding people down and sicking dogs on them What
? I ain't going down there. It's bad enough
in Brooklyn. I don't need to go down there
and get beat up on. However, lured by
the lower cost of living in the South and pushed
by his wife's frustration with a racial glass ceiling she
perceived on her job in New York, David,
his wife and his daughter left Brooklyn to move to
Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2000 and eight.
Near the end of our interview, David stated,
I would never move back to New York. David's
reservations about race in the South, however, reflect
the dilemmas of crossing the Mason Dixon line the boundary
that historically distinguished the South from the non South.
David concerns raised the question. How do non Southern
born black migrants to the urban south perceived and manage
the relationship between race and region? One highly relevant
literature that relates to black migrants concerns is provided by
regionalism theory, especially the line of research about regional
differences and racial attitudes. The convergence perspective is exemplified
in research on racial attitudes that shows that the level
of anti black prejudice among Southern whites have converged over
time with whites and other regions. While sociologist John
Shelton Reid argues generally for a distinctive enduring south on
the issue of race, he has stated that the
racial attitudes between white Southerners and other white Americans are
now differences only a degree and a relatively small degree
at that. As an alternative, The enduring regionalism
perspective suggests that the South continues to exhibit markedly higher
levels of racial prejudice. For instance, political scientist
James Kuklinski and colleagues concluded in their 1997 study of
regional differences and racial attitudes by stating that historically the
South has been the stronghold of racial prejudice. It
apparently continues to be so today. David's concerns about
moving to the South, however, raise a puzzle
in relation to the regionalism literature. We do not
understand how blacks perceive and manage moving to a place
of historically or persistent greater racial hostility. So I
would like to propose an approach to internal migration that
analyzes the regional boundary work of race among black migrants
to the south, I draw on research on boundaries
by scholars such as aviators Ruby Vell, Michele Lamont
and Charles Tilly. Spatial boundaries are distinctions that people
make to define place, examine how people not only
across physical boundaries of place but also crossed social and
cultural boundaries of place as they move. I also
drawn Philomena acids notion of everyday racism. I examine
how black migrants distinguished and manage the experience of everyday
racism as they move across regions. Everyday racism includes
racial minorities, comments about anti black attitudes and discriminatory
behaviours at the micro level, and their comments about
broader, institutionalized processes of group positioning. At the
macro level, The third piece of the framework draws
on cultural toolkit theory, as outlined by sociologists and
Swidler, which proposes that an individual social position can
shape the range of meanings they have available to make
sense of social action, where the purposes of the
present study social position can shape the meaning that people
give to internal migration. I will especially highlight the
role of generational identities. Sociologist Larry Griffin and Howard
Shuman have shown that memories of the civil rights movement
are more salient among people who experienced those events during
their adolescence and childhood. So to understand how blacks
make sense of race and region, I moved to
Charlotte, North Carolina, between May 2007. In
August 2000 and nine, I chose Charlotte because it
was an emerging magnet city for blacks, and I
wanted to capture processes in the initial stages of a
migration flow. As part of the overall project,
Charlotte had a net gain of approximately 5000 blacks in
the 19 seventies. But in the past decade,
the Metro had a net gain of approximately 80,000 blacks
. While living in Charlotte, I conducted 100 and
27 in depth interviews with blacks who were living in
the city but were born outside of the South.
I used a variety of methods to recruit people,
including using a marketing list of newcomers attending community events
, online social networking and asking people for referrals.
Race would often come up spontaneously in the interviews.
If not, I inquired about it directly by asking
about where they perceive they found more racial prejudice.
I also asked whether they considered race relations in the
South before moving, and if so, how so
And how did they still decide to come if they
had negative images? All of the interviews were recorded
, transcribed and coded with Atlas T I. The
interviews lasted between 45 minutes and five hours. Let
me further introduce you to the people I encountered over
the course of the study. These descriptions are solely
meant to describe my interviewees and are not meant to
represent the population. As I've noted, I focused
on identifying respondents who were born and raised outside of
the South. The Northeast was the most common source
region of these migrants. These individuals drove their U
hauls or got on trains and planes from places such
as New York City, Jersey City, Buffalo,
Pittsburgh or Philadelphia to head to Charlotte. The Midwest
was the second most common region, with migrants hailing
from places like Detroit, Cincinnati or Chicago. 13
respondents got on planes or trains from the West Coast
, primarily Los Angeles, these 2nd, 3rd or
even fourth generation descendants of the great migration often called
Northern and Western cities home and sometimes describe themselves as
having a northern mentality. Ignore Thern swagger or as
being West Coast babies. Only about a quarter of
the interviewees had a parent who was born in the
Carolinas. Another quarter had parents born in other parts
of the South, and the other half had parents
born outside of the South. The respondents were all
working age between the ages of 21 to 61 with
enough variation to distinguish the experiences of those who were
born before and after 1968 aqui delineating year in the
battle for civil rights. Also 54% more female,
which allows me to identify variation by gender. I
classified 57% of the interviewees as middle class, measured
by whether they had a college degree or household incomes
over$50,000 dollars per year. I classify the others
is working class, and all but two of those
had a high school diploma or a GED. My
interview is my interviews took me to the Bank of
America Towers in Uptown Charlotte, too small, functionally
furnished apartment in West Charlotte, two spacious homes in
ritzy areas of South Charlotte into the growing town of
Matthews, which is nestled right outside of Charlotte.
I talked with warehouse workers, engineers, parking attendants
, stay at home mothers, temporary office workers,
lawyers, call center workers and people who moved and
started their own businesses. I interviewed some migrants surrounded
by stacks of brown moving boxes in living rooms that
were partially arranged. I have been interviewed, others
who have been in the city for a while,
and we're quite familiar with its streets. The earliest
date at which the respondent moved was 1989 but three
quarters of them moved after the year 2000. Overall
, I talked to people until I reached that point
of theoretical saturation. In my last few interviews,
I was hearing nothing new, and I could predict
fairly well what they would say about their experiences of
race and reach. Okay, so how did the
interviewees consider and manage race and region in their migration
process? First, I want to show you what
I saw in my initial analysis of the data.
This is a bar graph of perceptions of the level
of racial prejudice across regions among 122 of my interviewees
, who expressed a clear response. The most frequent
response that came up among 43% of the migrants is
that the level of prejudice is the same across regions
. The other respondents who provided a clear opinion are
about evenly split between 29% percent perceiving more racial prejudice
in the south and 29% perceiving more in their source
region. My data generally showed that for the group
of interviewees as a whole, there is no general
consensus that there is more racial prejudice in the south
. But as I probed deeper into these perceptions,
I examine how they mattered for different kinds of migrants
. The most salient pattern arose when I examined perceptions
of levels of racial prejudice by age. Here is
a bar graph of perceptions of the levels of racial
prejudice for migrants. I studied broken down between migrants
between the ages of 21 to 39 those aged 40
to 61. The younger migrants are in the middle
and the older migrants are on your right. As
you can see, younger migrants lean more toward perceiving
more racial prejudice in their source cities relative to older
migrants who lean more toward perceiving more racial prejudice in
the South. When we look at these three graphs
together, my focus here is on the pattern in
these data, not on the numbers. I don't
aim for these numbers to be statistically generalize herbal,
since the sample was not randomly selected and was not
designed to make statistical inferences, However, I'm showing
you that there's no general consensus among interviewees in this
study that they are moving to a more racially hostile
region. But underlying these varied views are generational differences
where older migrants perceive the South more negatively than younger
migrants. As I mentioned earlier, sociological research on
the concept of generational identity might help us understand this
pattern for those migrants I study who came of age
in the fifties and sixties. The events of Jim
Crow in the South and the civil rights movement are
key events that can define their generational identity. For
those migrants I studied who came of age in the
19 seventies eighties and nineties, however, those memories
of race associated uh in the South might be less
salient, but this doesn't go deeply enough. While
I can classify people's perceptions of levels of racial prejudice
across region, this was not really migrants primary way
of organizing their understandings of race and region. Rather
than focus on the levels of racial prejudice across regions
, they were more focused on the forms of everyday
racism they perceived to be trading as they moved across
regions. As George Jet, a migrant from Cincinnati
, Ohio, said as she framed her discussion about
race and region. You see, racism comes in
a lot of different coats. So here I'd like
to discuss six dimensions of regional boundary work that emerged
in the interviews. The first dimension migrants discussed is
the over tennis or subtlety, in which they encountered
prejudice across regions. For instance, I interviewed Cecil
, a 54 year old cook, one morning at
a McDonald's in East Charlotte. He had moved to
Charlotte from Boston, Massachusetts, he stated. I
did learn that racism exists everywhere, but it's more
subtle. They're here, they're real overt. It's
getting better, but they'll let you know right quick
. No, we don't do your kind. We
don't do you, but in Massachusetts, they'll smile
before they put a knife in your back as opposed
to here. They'll put a knife in your back
and then they might smile. Yeah, 35 respondents
volunteered without my asking that they perceive Southern whites expressed
their prejudice in a more upfront manner relative to the
more subtle form they perceived in the North. But
not only do they perceive this distinction, they frequently
said that they prefer the more blatant expression to the
subtle. For instance, Neil was a 28 year
old maintenance worker from New Haven, Connecticut. He
was brimming over with things to say. As we
sat down outside a busy coffee shop one afternoon,
he said, It's like, Bring it on,
be racist towards me. I want you to be
straight up. If you don't like me because of
something, you have some prejudice or bias against me
. Just don't hide behind it. Just let me
know. That's how you feel. Migrants comments about
preferring a more overt form of prejudice did not indicate
that they desired overt prejudice in a general sense,
but instead that they find it easier to manage relatives
too subtle prejudice. These comments highlight how blacks can
draw on moral criteria that privilege, straightforwardness and authenticity
to reconcile the potential for encountering racial prejudice. Blatant
racial prejudice in the South, A second dimension that
migrants discuss is the incidents of verbal and racial harassment
. While the previous dimension focused on the authenticity with
which people express racial prejudice, the physical verbal harassment
dimension focuses more on the relative incidents of physical and
verbal harassment. Since such experiences commonly associated with the
South respondents expressed their knowledge of it in their source
regions to explain how they could decide to migrate.
One afternoon I met Harold, who left New York
because of the cost of living. He expressed that
he had not experienced racism, much racism in New
York. But with one exception, he described one
thing. I can say the police are more nicer
out here than in New York. That's one thing
where it's just like it's not more racist, because
in New York I remember there was a time when
I was in Brooklyn, I had a guy stopped
me because I looked like somebody who mugged somebody.
And out here there's been times when I've been speeding
and got stopped by the cops, and they've been
the nicest people and then in New York were constantly
hearing about the cops shooting somebody or the cops doing
this and the cops doing that here. I don't
think I've heard of that in New York. I
would see police and actually become afraid, especially in
the area that I was in. But out here
, I'm not. Similarly, Jared, an engineer
, explained his reconciliation of race in the South by
relating an incident he experienced while growing up in Long
Island, New York He was riding his back to
the store to get a model airplane, and he
was spat upon by a white male, he concluded
his response by saying, Coming from the Deep North
, it can't be worse than that. Migrants generally
perceive that the level of racial and verbal threats that
they will encounter is low relative to what their parents
and grandparents experienced. But if they do experience it
, it can happen anywhere. They express knowledge of
Ku Klux Klan activity in the cities they left experiences
of being chased by young white teenagers when they enter
the wrong neighborhood is adolescence or their personal experiences or
knowledge of other people's experiences with police harassment outside the
South. This knowledge serves as a metric for how
migrants are evaluating regional differences in the experiences of racial
prejudice and reconciling why it is okay for them to
move to the South. A third dimension of race
relations that migrants reference to distinguish their experiences in different
regions is social distance. For instance, I interviewed
David, the Brooklyn native, at an international house
of pancakes, the IHOP. One afternoon. He
motioned around us as he observed, And then as
much as I didn't want to admit it, New
York is more segregated than Charlotte is because in New
York, if you live in a black neighborhood and
you go to the IHOP, you know what you're
gonna see. You're gonna see black and Hispanic faces
. You go out to Greenacres Mall, you're gonna
see black faces, you go out to another mall
further out, you'll see white faces down here.
It seems like everything is mixed. We go to
the restaurant and I'm like Dad, a whole lot
of white people in here, So that was another
adjustment because we were always taught to believe it was
different that when you got down here, there were
certain places you didn't want to walk into because they'd
be all white. I've been in the East Village
in New York and walked into places I shouldn't have
went into, and I was just surprised that it's
more racially mixed down here than it was in New
York City. Several migrants mentioned their surprise at the
level of residential integration they experienced in Charlotte. Racial
attitudes Surveys suggest that Southern whites have been most opposed
to racially integrated neighborhoods. But we know that some
of the highest levels of racial residential segregation are in
cities outside the South. These regional differences in residential
patterns are salient among the forms of racism that blacks
perceived to be trading as they migrate to the South
. As Adrian, from Massachusetts, stated of the
South, if you have the money, you can
live anywhere you want. Whereas up north there's a
lot of lines. The fourth salient racial dimension that
migrants expressed with their perception of greater black economic opportunity
in the urban south than in some of the cities
they left. 31 interviewees volunteered this dimension of regional
distinction without my prompting middle class black migrants and male
migrants were also more likely to volunteer this dimension.
For instance, I met Frank, a 36 year
old counselor, early one morning at a Starbucks in
North Charlotte. We slightly yelled as we struggle to
hear ourselves over the oldies and rhythm and blues music
blaring from the speaker over our heads, he said
. Well, one of the reasons why I decided
that I would want to live down here is because
I thought that in Buffalo. Like I said,
you don't see a lot of people with their own
businesses, black people in Buffalo and this is a
stereotype. But they might own a liquor store.
They might own a hip hop clothing store. They
might own a barbershop, but doing my work.
There's very few private practice or license people, so
I got to a place in my field where it
was like, OK, glass ceiling like Frank.
Many migrants I interviewed perceived Charlotte to be an up
and coming city for blacks or the next Atlanta major
Black media have ranked Charlotte as a top city for
African Americans. Economically, the city now has had
two recent African American mayors and African American police chief
and a growing population of middle class blacks, and
they perceived these to be signs of greater economic opportunity
for themselves. However, Gwen, a migrant from
Maryland, had a less favorable view on this dimension
, as did more of the working class migrants.
She had struggled to turn positions at temporary employment agencies
in Charlotte into a secure, full time position.
She was considering leaving Charlotte, but hated to do
so because her kids like the city. She stated
of her kids. They love Charlotte, and that's
why it hurts me so bad that I have to
leave here because I break it down to them.
The bills, what's do, how we work this
and they do understand that right now we can't get
jobs, and that's very detrimental. And that's why
I said, I don't understand where these reporters are
getting their information. That's not what I'm living man
. Glenn's comments illustrate how the rosy visions of black
economic opportunities in Charlotte that are portrayed in media do
not match the experiences of all migrants once they get
to the city, as some of the quotes so
far suggests, migrants do not perceive that the South
is a racial utopia. The fifth major dimension that
migrants discussed is racial symbols, especially their perceptions of
exposure to Confederate symbolism as they move to the South
, 22 respondents volunteered this dimension before I asked.
I talked with Gabrielle, a call center supervisor from
New York state, one Sunday afternoon about her move
to Charlotte. She brought up her experiences with the
Confederate flag in Charlotte and said, There still are
a lot of people that have their little Confederate flags
on their cars and stuff. And I've actually had
arguments with white people about it that for them it's
not a sign of hatred. It's their history.
Gabrielle went on to discuss her experiences with the Confederate
flag on her job. She said a white guy
and he worked with me so in this place is
80% black people and he had this label pin.
He showed it to me, but it was a
Confederate flag or something. I think he did it
to kind of insight and argument just to prove it's
just people in their heritage and tried to say that
most people involved were just poor white people who didn't
have slaves and blah, blah, blah, and
I know that. But that's not a reason to
embrace it. The Confederate flag symbol goes beyond a
remembrance of the Civil War for Gabrielle and other migrants
I interviewed. It served as a use of collective
memory to distinguish individuals who may express contemporary racial prejudices
. Respondents often said that they tried to stay away
from these individuals. They ignored them. They dismiss
them as lower class and ignorant. Or they advised
them that the staff lost get over it. Their
response. To show how newcomers must confront and grapple
with the ways that the past will define the contemporary
experience of race in the South as they settle into
the region. The final, salient racial dimension of
regional boundaries was migrants perception of greater paternalistic relations in
the South compared to other regions. 36 respondents spontaneously
offered this regional distinction in their interviews. One frequent
way they discussed this was through their discomfort with the
practice of saying, Yes, ma'am, Yes,
sir, No, ma'am, no, sir.
In relation to whites, they perceive this practice to
be a remnant of slavery. For instance, Hazel
, a bus driver from Brooklyn, New York,
talk with me while keeping watch over her five year
old twin son and daughter, who sat between us
. She explained about her experiences with the schools in
Charlotte. New Yorkers respect people, but we don't
say like, yes, ma'am and yes, sir
, and this is what they're teaching them in school
. I'm uncomfortable with that. And I tell them
, as long as you say yes and no,
that's okay, because when I hear that, yes
, ma'am, and no ma'am attached, it takes
me back to the slavery mentality, the slavery existence
, and I'm like, Is that what you're trying
to teach my kids? That's something in the past
that needs to stay in the past. Hes Those
comments echo other respondents, such as Maria from Maryland
, who is uncomfortable with her African American co worker
. Referencing their white supervisor as ma'am, Maria said
that she told a coworker, You don't have to
call her ma'am every time you say that, I
cringe. The respondents concerns about this language and its
relationship to slavery illustrates the ways that migrants to the
south are relating. The South's passed to contemporary everyday
interaction with whites and southern blacks in the region.
It shows how moving to the south is a way
that migrants are crossing cultural boundaries as they are encountering
new meanings and practices they perceived to distinguish the South
from their source regions. So I hope these findings
shed light on how blacks are considering and managing dilemmas
of race and region as they migrate. First,
there's no overall consensus among blacks. I studied that
they are moving to a place of greater racial prejudice
. However, my data suggests generational variations. Older
migrants I studied lean toward perceiving more racial prejudice in
the South, while younger migrants lean more toward perceiving
more racial prejudice in their source cities. But underlying
these general perceptions, blacks perceived to be trading different
forms of racism as they move to the South.
I find that migrants generally perceived to be trading more
subtle anti black prejudice in the North with a more
straightforward form in the South, and they say that
the straightforward is easier to manage than the subtle Second
, they recall images of racial physical violence and harassment
as generally associated more with the South. They reconcile
these images by drawing on their knowledge of harassment in
their source regions or by discussing other forms of harassment
. They perceive themselves to be trading, such as
police harassment. Third, many of them perceived to
be trading greater social distance in the North, especially
as related to racial residential segregation as they moved to
Charlotte. Yeah, fourth, they generally perceived to
be trading constraints on black economic opportunity in the North
with their perceptions of greater economic opportunity for blacks in
Charlotte. But they also do not perceive the South
to be a racial utopia. Fifth, they confront
symbols of the racial conflict that has defined regions through
encountering the Confederate flag while driving in the car,
walking through the mall in their neighborhoods are on their
jobs. Finally, they perceive continued paternalistic relationships in
the South that they encounter through cultural practices, that
they relate to the memory of slavery, such as
saying yes, ma'am or Yes, sir. So
what does a regional boundary work approach to race and
migration? Tell us first. This approach offers a
lens through which to examine how race matters for internal
migration. The boundary work approach reveals the meanings of
race and place that show up in the internal migration
process at the micro level, and the variation among
racial minorities in the meanings of race and place in
their migration process. Second, regionalism theory has focused
on whether levels of racial prejudice in the South or
now similar, or whether the South remains more racially
hostile. My evidence suggests that what is most salient
for black migrants is the forms of racial prejudice.
They perceive themselves to be trading as they cross regional
boundaries rather than the levels of racial prejudice across regions
. Finally, this analysis implies that research on racism
should probe the ways that racial minorities are encountering racism
in their everyday lives. While measures of dimensions such
as segregation levels are quite familiar and research on racial
inequality, other dimensions emerge in the study that we
have considered less, such as saying yes, ma'am
and no ma'am in the contemporary South. As we
move towards gauging progress or persistence in racism in the
21st century, we should consider these alternative ways of
thinking about its manifestations. So in the final part
of the presentation, I want to take a minute
to give you a sense of some areas for future
research. One area for future research is to examine
how migrants are fearing in the South. This could
include following up with migrants to examine their post migration
trajectories and the extent to which they were able to
use spatial mobility as a strategy for socio economic stability
or upward mobility. What shapes variation in their trajectories
of work neighborhood residents use of social and organizational resources
, etcetera. We also need additional research about the
impact of the black reverse migration. What consequences will
the migration have for blacks? Economic status? What
will be the consequences for residential segregation in the South
? How will black religious institutions change? How will
it affect congressional redistricting and politics in the South?
In addition, we need to better understand how black
migration is tied to other forms of spatial mobility,
such as international migration or neighborhood mobility. We could
do more to compare black migration to research on the
migration of other groups, such as white migrants to
the south or immigrants. These comparisons across literatures and
groups and the dialogue across method illogical approaches will move
the sociological agenda forward and help us better understand the
commonalities and differences in how people use facial mobility to
pursue opportunity. So thank you and I look forward
to any questions and comments. Yeah. Yes.
Emily. Really interested in the way you got a
generation broke down that chart that eventually so evenly divided
. I wondered if you could about whether that happened
at all in those other six dimensions or whether there
seems to be consensus Six us generation, The generation
? Mm hmm. Yeah. So I didn't.
So I examined, um, kind of age,
right? Um, for the overall pattern of where
do you think there's more racism or racial prejudice?
Um, and also across the dimensions. And I
didn't see the differences across the multiple dimensions. Um
, I did see other differences across the dimensions,
such as class such as gender. So on the
black economic opportunity dimension, middle class blacks are much
more kind of caught up in this narrative about Atlanta
and Charlotte. These places as kind of these black
meccas, black places for economic opportunity, the working
class? Not as much, because they're having different
experiences moving. Um, the black middle class are
also more likely to move with a job in place
because they're relocated. Um, they have relocation assistance
. They're recruited. Um, so on and so
forth. Um, I also found differences in terms
of gender on some of those dimensions. So the
dimension on racial, physical and verbal harassment and particularly
discussions of the police was much more common among black
men. Um, than among black women. Um
, the residential segregation discussion came up much more among
black men, Um, than black women. Um
, and the black economic opportunity dimension came up much
more among black men as well. So I didn't
see generational differences in those kind of nuanced dimensions.
But I did see them on those other kind of
variables. Yes, your fifth point mhm war in
the south area. So they mentioned that they had
more exposure to it, um, in the south
, um, than in the places that they left
. Um they talked about some of them, talked
about not ever seeing it in their lives and coming
down south and kind of being shocked when they would
see it on a bumper sticker or a license plate
. Um, there was maybe two or three who
mentioned, um, seeing it outside of the South
. Um, one guy mentioned kind of being a
leader of a work crew, and, um,
while they were out doing some work, somebody came
along with the Confederate flag, and so he made
it seem like he was no longer the leader of
the work crew. And he put one of the
white guys kind of as the leader because he was
concerned about, um, what they would do.
And that was in California. Um, but for
the most part, uh, people mentioned, uh
, just much greater exposure. Um, that they
perceived in the south to the Confederate flag. Especially
given the history, um, of the Confederate flag
should be harmful. Uh huh. Absolutely mhm that
we have. Mm hmm. Yeah. So I
so you can definitely see it outside of the south
. Um, And as I mentioned, you know
, maybe two or three people mention that, um
but they felt like they were definitely seeing it much
more. Um, down here. Yeah. Yes
. This is just a very quick gold. More
recent mhm two years ago. I've seen it,
right. Mhm, mhm. Mhm to the Uh
huh. More than likely it's manifestation, right?
The transformation of white supremacy in the White House.
Yes. And the idea that the whiteness this is
now vulnerable target and the idea that on some level
, whites have to manifest support for whiteness for their
group, their race in the same fashion that minority
populations done without. Necessarily. And I would are
probably because of the extent to which the symbolism has
been cast as heritage. That gives it even greater
purchase in places like Pennsylvania. No, you leave
that. Yeah. Politics. Yeah. So what
you said would not happen in New Jersey, right
, Pennsylvania. Especially certain parts there. Or Indiana
. I was reading one news article of it,
you know, in Canada, so you can find
it, you know, in a lot of different
places. Uh huh. I'm from New York.
Okay. I mhm. Okay. That word standing
better flag was here in black. Mhm. Well
, this is south. But most Southern people it's
not. Yeah, because it's a college town,
or people just don't think that Virginia is that they
have a minute, right? I You know,
I tell that I'm you know, I'm in the
South. Yeah. So these are These are New
Yorkers who are saying this is not the South Southerners
who don't, uh, Mississippi and Alabama and I
definitely with the yes man. No, sir.
I definitely see that a lot these are You're mhm
Did that. My teacher mhm was interesting because I
like that. I I think that when you brought
it up saying a belief, slavery and ideas that
monster? Yeah, Mhm. I just think it's
something out of more that things like that. Weird
. Yeah. Slavery views. Yeah, in Passaic
. And even then, like Spanish cultures. Anyway
, that's that Mhm. He went down here.
You see, white people tell them otherwise. Mhm
, Racial. Mhm. I think it's really interesting
that for 60 fired Uh huh. I tried to
get theoretical saturation so that when I meet New Yorkers
and they start telling, you know, even now
, I still meet New Yorkers. Um, and
they should be telling me exactly what I kind of
found. If they're telling me something different, then
that means I need to go back to the field
. I didn't, you know, kind of get
the story, right? Um I think, Yeah
, I know what you ve a. Um The
kind of distinction between west and south or not is
kind of the Northern Virginia area. People are like
, OK, that's not the south. But outside
of that, the more rural areas are the south
, but I don't know what it like here in
Blacksburg. Um, in terms of the yes,
ma'am. No, ma'am, I'll give a little
bit more kind of detail on that dimension. So
they did talk about this kind of more nuanced way
of thinking about Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am
. So they would talk about growing up. And
so in the African American community, you might do
that to your elders, right? To grandparents,
To your parents. Um, but you did not
do that in relation to whites. Um, some
of them did talk about, though, coming down
south and having whites addressed them as Yes, ma'am
. No, ma'am. Yesterday. And they like
that. But the other way around of seeing blacks
kind of use that language in relation to whites.
Um, for them, it brought back kind of
this kind of sense of a tide of slavery.
Um, so they did have that. That kind
of nuanced sense that within the black community, you
know, it's okay, but in relation to whites
, it can be problematic, so mhm. Oh
, yes. I would argue that Survive. Yeah
, Yes. Mhm. And didn't happen. Worse
work. He was one. Yeah. Mhm.
Someone said. It's in fact, uh, two
hours. Yeah, almost the school system. Ready
Leader. The anti integration movement in the country with
Social. The person that they are just a few
days ago, uh, which the elected black legislators
walked out Mhm. Just add it to the electoral
college. Happened here. Yeah, Yeah, I
would agree with that. I mean, even with
the whole, you know, Northern Virginia, that's
just recent in terms of the kind of shift from
D. C pushing more and more into Virginia.
That's a recently kind of developing thing in terms of
people making that distinction. But for in terms of
the research, Fred beat Alexander, uh, in
the 19 sixties. Mm hmm. Uh, yeah
, yeah. Which is Yeah, another interesting question
to pursue. Um, so I counted Virginia as
the South in terms of how I did the study
. Um, I basically, uh, folks who
I I did include people from Maryland and D.
C who felt who were moving to North Carolina.
They felt like they were moving to the south.
Um, so I encountered. I counted, so
I was interested in how they were defining the south
, and so they felt like It was a different
experience. Um, but I would agree Maryland was
the only place I've ever been. Refused. Mhm
. The place. Mhm. So? So I
pretended. Yeah, I did not immigrate. Mhm
border state undergraduate students in 1964 were arrested for going
across the street to eat. Mm hmm. Yeah
. Uh huh. Uh huh. Mhm. Yeah
. So I So these are their perceptions. And
I think there's there's definitely a distinction to make between
perceptions and the actual reality and history. Um and
so, yeah, I mean, and even in
looking at kind of the census data and how they
define I mean, people are defining the south as
they do kind of research with surveys and stuff.
And, you know, sometimes they include Maryland.
Sometimes they don't. Um but I think the question
of how people are thinking about it and how it's
changed and why there's this kind of perception now that
doesn't match the history and not knowing the history.
I think that's an interesting question right there. So
, yes, definitely. Where is he? Yes
, I know. Mhm. I was always very
sick, mhm, regardless of race. And that's
how every time he wasn't mhm. Mhm. Carlos
of we were white. I can say mhm,
my first. I'm just going Going to a friend's
house. It's not like that. At least from
my mhm a hey, flashback like slavery. Yeah
. Mhm heritage, credit rating. I say it's
more regional. Yeah, bracelet. It's not.
My high school compared flags everywhere. People wear it
. Which high school did you go to? Okay
. Alright. Already? 25. I would say
23% African American. We don't really have a problem
with it. Like one of our, I guess
. School hiding, wear camera school. Uh,
you were camera show like yourself inside like a inner
city school. Right? And it was a robbery
in football. It was like something. Okay,
that's cool. Yeah. Uh huh. You didn't
see it as a racial part? The greatest What
? Hide behind that. But it was there.
It was more of a heritage. 100 right?
Mhm. So, um, so they've done kind
of so we kind of know the history that these
symbols were tied right to kind of the Confederate states
of America to, um a sense of secessionism,
um, to, you know, these symbols Confederate
flag and so on were the symbols used by folks
who didn't want to integrate schools. Right, so
they were used. Um, as white supreme have
been used as white supremacist symbols. Um, and
there's psychological research that's been done, Um, where
people are kind of shown an image of a Confederate
flag, and then they're shown kind of a more
neutral symbol. And they do find that if you
kind of prime people with a symbol of Confederate whites
with a consumable of Confederate flag, it does do
things like, uh, they were interested in kind
of whether it decreased kind of positive feeling toward Barack
Obama, um, or whether it was related to
kind of a greater sense of racial prejudice. And
they found that those symbols did kind of, uh
, lead to less support for Obama, and we're
tied to a sense of racial prejudice. So even
in this contemporary moment, um, I do think
that especially, you know, being at U v
. A. I have students. I forgot the
name of the school. One of my students went
to school, um, in Richmond and it's Lee
something. Yeah. Lee Davis, right? Um
, yeah, and the and the the team football
team is the rebels or something? Yeah. Yeah
, so I mean that, um, those symbols
and images is institutionalized right there, institutionalized, um
, in these spaces, um, even, you
know, university spaces, um, and high school
spaces. Um, so But even as they're institutionalized
even now into the present, they do have this
history. And they are, um, research shows
that they are still kind of linked to this sense
of racial prejudice. Um, that basically, while
whites might say that Oh, this is a symbol
of heritage. Um, it's not what actually happens
when they do These implicit kind of racial attitudes tests
. Most of us emphasized bigotry has a conscious phenomenon
. And what this is indicating is that even if
we are not consciously aware of the significance of symbols
and representations that are bringing process them based upon the
context within which we've been exposed to, So the
context where we've been exposed to the federal flag are
such that they are triggering unconscious, implicit bias responses
. And I think that's the thing that, um
it gets lost in the conversation because emphasize this idea
. This is what I understand it to mean to
me on a conscious level without being able to appreciate
how powerful symbols are manifesting in all sorts of cognitive
and affective responses that people are not particularly aware of
. But they still have the same concept. Mhm
. Yeah. I mean, there was, I
think a school in Florida. Um, I think
it was like Forrest High School. Anyone know?
Kind of who? That Nathan Bedford Forrest, Right
? Who was a leader in the Ku Klux Klan
. So I mean, these images, these people
are remembered here, um, in an interesting way
in the south that you that actually you have it
in the north, but it's more subtle, right
? You can be walking around universities and being building
, being buildings named after people Who were you,
genesis and things like that. But the names kind
of don't register as much to people, but,
um, yeah, the Confederate memory is definitely kind
of institutionalized here and related to kind of continuing racism
. Mhm. Yes. Um, talk about the
all right. I think you said want it out
from Charlotte. Mhm. Yeah. Is that something
that I'm like? All right. Talking. Um
I would say that there are some who moved and
didn't necessarily. Um, not all of them move
and stay even with the great migration. When people
move north, you have people going back and forth
between the south and the North Here. You're going
to have that, too. Um, I had
other folks who didn't stay because they couldn't find work
. That's one of the biggest reasons why they didn't
stay. I also have to say that in another
part of the project, I look at how people
chose Charlotte right as their destination. And so the
working class primarily choose Charlotte because they have family ties
or friendship ties. Um, in the city,
the middle class have kind of a broader range of
resources that route them to Charlotte. Like not only
family, they might have gone to school. Historically
, black colleges, um, in the south.
And then they decide to stay. Um, they
also might have had a job. Um, some
of them might have read in black Enterprise, uh
, black, uh, essence, right? That
Charlotte is this kind of up and coming city,
which is interesting parallel to the great migration where you
had kind of the Chicago defender in these major black
media outlets that are kind of directing people, but
some of those resources are more helpful for some things
than others. Right? So if you move because
your cousin lives there, your aunt lives there,
You might have a place to stay, but you
might not be able to find a job. Right
? Um, whereas if you move through an employer
transferring you there or recruiting you there like the middle
class, then you have a job. You might
not know people, but you can stay because you
can pay your bills. Um, people who move
, because I mean literally. Some people said I
moved here because I read in Black Enterprise that Charlotte
was a top 10 city for people for black people
to live, play and work. Um, well
, she was leaving because she got down there.
She didn't have She didn't know anyone. Um,
she didn't have a job, um, and so
she couldn't make it, but she did want to
eventually move back. So there were some people I
interviewed who who were, especially the black working class
, um, who couldn't find work, especially black
working class women who were going into a temp agencies
and then being placed in these office settings where they
were the only, you know, person of color
in the office and the kind of kind of cultural
work that goes on there That means that they don't
get to keep the job. Um, so they
especially struggled. And, um, we're talking about
potentially leaving. Mhm, Yes. No. What
is the Yeah, classic luxury. And I know
that from here. Yes, and like me,
grew up in a lower middle class or working mhm
. He The way he described to me was meantime
, school was mostly black. Yeah, similar to
my experience. So we talked about Uh huh.
But that's you know that's him. I don't know
. Like Charlotte Big. I don't know. Scarlett
has a really big structure of different in structure and
flash. Mhm obvious that there's huge differences between.
And that's where you make it, right? You
know, racial prejudices. You know more than when
you say class structures. You mean the differences between
, like the black middle class relative to the black
working class and poor relative to white working class,
middle class. Okay, so how the, for
example, how the black middle class differ from the
white middle class, like are they living in the
same neighborhoods and, yeah, things like that.
Okay, so So? So in Charlotte, you
talk more about working class and middle class flax.
Is that staying for white? Is it just the
working class and middle class? Okay, a big
Mm hmm. So I think I think for both
, um, So I So I only looked at
working class and middle class because that's kind of who
I defined as part of my study. Um,
but I think across blacks and whites, you're gonna
see the range. Um uh, from poor people
who define themselves poor all the way to kind of
black upper class. Um, some folks I defined
as black middle class, but it was primarily on
the basis of education, but they lived in,
you know, places that look like mansions to me
. Um, so you have blacks living like that
? Um, there are also people actually interviewed a
few folks I would classify as poor, and I
didn't include them here because I wanted kind of a
clear kind of class comparison. Um, but these
were people who were, you know, living in
one room. Just know, you know, trouble
with a job going to get homeless assistance from different
social service agencies. So you have those folks as
well. You also have. I think that range
among whites. Um, one thing they did say
, though, was that they felt like if you
go to poor neighborhoods in Charlotte, you wouldn't just
see poor black people. You also see poor white
people. Um, much more so than in the
places they left where they felt like if you go
to a poor, poor black area, you're just
gonna see poor black people. Um, So they
felt like there was more racial integration within the kind
of class based neighborhoods in Charlotte than in the places
they left. Yeah. Does that answer okay?
Yes. Right. Oh, okay. Uh huh
, right. I mean, I was right there
. It's like, what's happening? Yeah, I
think it's sweet. Uh huh. Uh huh.
Uh, actually, uh, yeah. And your
grits? Yeah. Back of the grits. Mm
hmm. Course I mean, I've been in trouble
off. Bye, Birdman. Mhm. Rather somebody
you want to say. Uh huh. Uh huh
. I was shocked. Okay. Mhm. Mhm
. Yeah. Turned into Yeah. Mm. Yeah
. All right. Work make mhm. Quite irritating
. Mhm. But you find we're the suburbs.
Yeah, Like I steer out. Yeah, they
are, right? Mm hmm. Hmm. Yeah
. Mhm. Last mhm number. City is when
I'm done. Mhm way. All right. Yeah
. Okay. Mm hmm. Mhm sitting in the
dark work. Uh huh. 1930 40 miles out
. So I can tell you what they say.
Um, so they do believe that there is a
rural urban difference. Um, and one woman talked
about going to kind of night classes at a community
college and Gastonia and being afraid, which is a
rural area, right? Right outside of Charlotte and
being afraid to drive at night, going out there
, having the n word hurled at her, seeing
confederate flags. Um, so she did feel that
there was a difference. Um, and so they
often talked about, You know, I'm just gonna
stay in Charlotte, even though I'm moving to the
south. I'm gonna stay in Charlotte. I'm not
necessarily gonna go to those rural areas where they're back
up in the woods. They would say, um
and they also made a distinction. I mean,
Charlotte is right there near South Carolina. They felt
like, um, South Carolina was much, much
worse as well. Um, than North Carolina.
It's kind A like Don't go to South Carolina.
Um, right, right, exactly. Kind of
stay in North Carolina and stay in the cities.
So they did kind of perceive that, Um,
it's interesting. I was talking to a friend at
the faculty club at U V. A. They
don't serve sweet tea. I don't understand why.
Yeah, and we have, You know, we
have to ask and get the sweet lower the sugar
packets and you know, that type of thing.
Um, in terms of the ma'am and sir um
So there's actually a book by an African American sociologist
, Bertram Doyle, that was written back in the
19 thirties called the Etiquette of Race Relations in the
South. And he talks about the kind of etiquette
of race relations in slavery, right? And the
ways in which, when African Americans as slaves could
not initiate a conversation with whites, if they did
, they had to keep their heads down. Um
, as they were talking, um, they had
to use ma'am and sir, if they didn't use
that, they would be violating kind of the social
code. The social order. Um, and so
African Americans kind of are aware of that particular history
about how they had to engage themselves in relation to
whites. And so that's why they're thinking about it
. Um, in these kind of racialized terms at
the same time, it is true that whites use
Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. No,
ma'am. No, sir. Sometimes I get people
in the military, right? You're taught to say
yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. Um,
but among African Americans, I think there is still
this understanding that particularly during slavery, it was required
right to use that. It was kind of the
racial etiquette, the racial code, and not using
. It was kind of getting out of order.
And so as they move south, they interpret African
Americans using it in relation to whites. Um,
in relation to that history. So, yeah,
what? To try to come back. Plastic.
Mhm. A major part of what happens some cities
is that this neighborhood's evolved race and asset of the
social fabric. Whereas when you look at places like
New York or Chicago, race got after the cities
were already established. And so what you saw in
those places where certain groups got called in certain places
and those those neighborhoods they came to be associated with
those groups. Or then subsequently maybe they've been trained
transition, like African Americans did, and following Italians
or Irish or Jewish immigrants to many of the neighborhoods
and cities. So what you see in the south
is there, There, there There are particularly places
there. Whoa. Uh and and that's what they've
always been. So if you're poor, that's where
you're gonna live. Uh, you're much more likely
to see patterns of segregation, your point in the
suburbs, where the patterns of development have been much
more consciously driven land and where practices of steering and
housing discrimination could really have an impact. Uh,
one of the other things that's really interesting about the
South is where the distinction in restaurants, restaurants in
places like New York and Baltimore neighborhood. So when
you get somebody who grows up in Brooklyn, he
used to go into a restaurant in the neighborhood and
getting something. And this is in the South,
especially the southern metropolis is you have these commercial centers
and everybody goes to so there's an IHOP that you
know, and there's not, you know, the
next one. Maybe for the next place like that
, maybe 10, 15 miles down the road.
So everybody nearby go to that that I hope it's
not grabbing. And it's not anchored in the neighborhood
and the dynamics of the neighborhood. It's anchored in
these generic commercial spaces around malls and business district.
So you're gonna see more so that mixing going on
where, you know, in New York you go
to the neighborhood restaurant and everybody's there is from the
neighborhood, and that's also going to be a factor
in the way that the experience. I agree.
The chart where it said, like 21 48 group
. So more racism in their source, City High
is also very true because I know that and what
I would say the North much more stop because,
like Long Island, for example, I know,
uh, school districts are doesn't work for this.
I don't know. School districts are made, so
when we are so my school district was the minority
. Five towns were town right next to us.
Go away with his own mhm all the bridges in
New York, you know, from way back when
all the bridges in New York are low and what
we learn and nothing mhm that the British were made
both that mhm at the end of the New York
, you know, get out of these. We're
all the way. Where is that? Yeah,
Yes, when you get that mhm. So you
know, and and the east of Long Island is
more. Yes, you can say suburbs for the
world Way out there. Looks like that. But
it's not. It's not what? You know what
it looks like here, because I know like I
live more middle on. And then out of the
queen, which is very yeah, the Burrows.
That's definitely different wages. You know more. That's
all County, actually. Mhm. So I would
definitely I find myself agreeing with that chart where I've
seen more risks in there that I can hear even
when seeing my first Confederate flag alone. Someone window
here, black birth, Even with seeing bin coming
well, that had 1000 Hispanics 900 blocks, 200
other, which included white people coming here to Texas
where you know we are the actual minorities. So
I it's really funny to see that that's why I
agree with everything you're saying? Uh, okay,
I was in the field long enough, so hopefully
I have a story, right? Um, yeah
. So I would also add to what both of
you have said, um is in terms of what
you find in the residential segregation in the north.
That's because of the great migration. Right? So
, um, you have cities like Chicago, Uh
, New York, New York City in 1910.
Those places where maybe 10% black at most. Right
. Um, some of them were two or 3%
black, but because of the great migration, more
than five million blacks moving to these cities. Um
, this is what you see. You see,
people being kind of directed, um, into certain
neighborhoods. You see these institutionalised policies and practices,
racial steering, and so on to try to kind
of separate the black migrants from whites. You see
whites leaving, uh, neighborhoods and kind of moving
out of the cities a little bit later. Um
, and so it also raises questions about kind of
what's going to happen with the reverse migration as blacks
move. How will that affect kind of residential segregation
patterns, especially in the suburbs? Um of Southern
cities. So, uh, black migration has been
, um well, less black migration, but white
response to black migration, right? Kind of underlies
, uh, this kind of regional variation you see
in the patterns of residential segregation. Yeah. All
right. Thank you so much. I appreciate it 1214 --> A:middle L:90% .