Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

trends in the black community to
shed some light upon some of the
underlying variables in this perplexing
situation . There are a variety
of ways in which these changes
can be analyzed, but we choose to
focus upon two general approaches
: (1) where we were at
the beginning of the decade, or an
earlier point, as compared to where
we are now ; and ( 2 ) the relative
changes in the black and white
communities, and where these
changes leave us in relation to those
who so utterly fail to understand
our condition . The varieties of
variables that one might select, the
different statistical measures that
might be applied, and the different
base populations, or starting points,
make it easy to prove any point one
wishes to prove about the black
community . We hope to avoid this
problem in some instances (notably
income) by presenting several
measures to show the trends in the
black community .
One of the most significant
Twentieth-century trends among
black people ha.s been the redistribution
cf the population, from the
country to the city, and out of the
South to the North and West . This
trend has continued into the Sixties .
Between 1960 and 1966 the proportion
of black people in the South
declined from 60 to 55 percent . We
should not ignore the fact, however,
that despite a vast migratory
trend, the majority of the black
people still live in the South, and
blacks make up one-fifth of the
NEGRO DIGEST March 1968
total population in the southern
states .
In addition to the movement out
of the South, black people have
been moving into cities, and the
large ones at that, in both North
and South . The recent appointment
of a black "mayor" in Washington,
D . C ., and the election of black
men to mayoralties in Gary and
Cleveland is a direct manifestation
of the presence of large black populations
in these cities . Over half
(56 percent) of all black people
now live in the central cities of
metropolitan areas, and the population
increase has been fastest in
the largest cities . In metropolitan
areas with one million or more persons,
black people comprise onefourth
of the central city population,
and the experts estimate that
in 1965 black people were at least
25 percent or more of the population
of 11 of the 30 largest cities in
the country . These cities and the
proportions of their population
which are black are as follows :
Washington 66
Newark 47
Atlanta 44
New Orleans 41
Memphis 40
Baltimore 38
St. Louis 36
Cleveland 34
Detroit 34
Philadelphia 31
Chicago 28
The evidence indicates that more
black people than ever before are
both interested in education and are
29