Black Migration Patters

Growing up in the seventies,  I thought most black people lived in small towns in the South and big cities in the North.  I was shocked to learn many years later that African Americans can be found in rural and urban areas in other parts of the country and across the border in Canada.

I have learned that African Americans established proud communities in upstate New York, thanks to the Underground Rail Road during slavery.  Through a covert system of waterways,  safe houses, and trusted allies,  slaves escaped to places like Auburn and Elmira,  New York, as well as small towns scattered throughout the Adirondacks,  where many of their descendants live today.

Slaves settled in Canada on the final stop of the Underground Rail Road in search of a better way of life.  They built churches,  schools, and businesses in Ontario,  Quebec, and other Canadian Provinces where human bondage didn't exist.

Nearly a Century later, hundreds of thousands of  Black Americans abandoned the South for the North and West during the Great Migration. After fighting to save democracy abroad, African Americans faced a crossroads. They not only migrated to Detroit, Chicago, and other big Northern cities but to smaller communities like Akron,  Ohio, and Muskegon,  Michigan, to work in the steel and auto industries and to forgo the harsh reality of Jim Crow.  Countless others found a home in West Coast towns like Long Beach,  Sacramento, Los Angeles, and Seattle,  where they endured the ups and downs of freedom.

With knowledge of African American migration patterns, I now understand our many differences and that we are not one-dimensional, as many may think.