The Disturbing History Of White Flight And Its Lasting Impact On American Cities Today!

"WHITE FLIGHT"

Also known as the "GREAT WHITE EXODUS", white flight describes the migration of white people away from racially diverse cities and towns in America.

The factors that led to white flight are very simple and not complex in the least. Between the 1910s and the 1970s, millions of Black Americans moved north during the Great Migration. In the middle of that period, the post-World War II economic boom meant that many families had money to spend and wanted bigger homes, safer communities and public schools that focused on academic instruction rather than discipline. The demographic shift driven by white flight in the 1960s is clearly illustrated in the United States’ shifting population statistics. In 1968 the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (the Kerner Commission) concluded that the country, despite civil rights reforms, was “moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” The Kerner Commission was established in response to the “long, hot summer” of 1967’s nearly 160 violent racial clashes prompted by Black Americans’ anger at continued racism and poverty caused by deindustrialization in the cities. One of the most notable riots was the Detroit Riot of 1967—sparked by a police raid on a bar in which 82 Black patrons were arrested—which quickened white flight in Detroit. According to the Kerner Commission’s report, 91 percent of the country’s 9.8 million Black residents lived in the American South in 1910. By 1966 only 55 percent of the Black population, then at 21.5 million, lived in the American South, and 69 percent of all Black Americans (14.8 million) lived in cities, as opposed to 64 percent of white Americans. Meanwhile, the inner-city white population declined by 1.3 million in the 1960s. Although the white population increased by 35.6 million between 1950 and 1966, 77.8 percent of that increase occurred in the suburbs. By 1966 metropolitan areas around cities were 96 percent white. White folks simply want to live in safe neighborhoods and send their offspring off to safe schools. It's really that simple! reported by SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST MARK ANTHONY TRAINA