Quote:
Originally Posted by Nantais
Maybe a stupid question, but why did the Black population of Détroit increased so much from 1950 to 1980 ?
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The black population in every major U.S. city increased rapidly from the end of WWII until the 1980's.
This was called the Great Migration, and involved rural blacks in the American South moving to bigger cities for economic opportunity (and, to a certain extent, especially in the earlier years, to escape discrimination).
The biggest growth in black population was in cities with a manufacturing base that were relatively close to the South.
Midwestern cities with a manufacturing base, especially Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland, received huge black populations. The major Northeastern cities (except for Boston) also received huge populations (DC also because federal jobs didn't discriminate, for the most part). And in the West, LA and Oakland had huge increase, with folks working in the shipyards and other new opportunities.