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Same here...My grandfather used to go to Memphis from the Mississippi delta to Beale Street back in the day.
My mom is from SC and Charleston is full of Black culture. In the US, it's probably the city where the African roots are still heavily in place, but the people came directly to the city/area. A lot of black folks from the Sea Islands would go there.
Also, what people forget about NYC is that Black folks were literally enslaved there. Think about who built the now famous Wall Street for the Dutch in the 1600's. Even in my part of NY State, many of the first permanent residents of communities were runaway slaves from the Hudson or Mohawk Valley areas of the state. Sojourner Truth was a slave from NY State and was born there. So, NY, as a state and NYC itself, has a very deep and diverse Black history considering that it is a Northern state. Masschusetts is another one, as Boston has a very, very old black community. Think of Crispus Attacks, the 54th Regiment and other.
Same here...My grandfather used to go to Memphis from the Mississippi delta to Beale Street back in the day.
Yes, Memphis and the Mississippi delta definitely deserve a mention here. Musically and religiously, that area has had a huge impact on Black culture.
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My mom is from SC and Charleston is full of Black culture. In the US, it's probably the city where the African roots are still heavily in place, but the people came directly to the city/area. A lot of black folks from the Sea Islands would go there.
Yeah, the SC/GA Lowcountry is about as close as it gets in terms of preserved communities where the cultural remnants of slavery are very evident.
I mentioned both Memphis and Charleston earlier, but this thread got a bit derailed.
For rich African-American history and culture, Philadelphia is definitely a good place to look. Philadelphia is considered a major part of African-American history, along with some of its suburban communities. African-Americans have been living in Philadelphia since the 1700's. Philadelphia was on the Underground Railroad. Oddly enough, during the time of the Underground Railroad, there was a large undercurrent of Nativism in Philadelphia. During this time there were many riots against African-Americans in Philadelphia. Even so, the population has remained and gotten larger since the 1880's. In the late 1800's, Philadelphia had the largest African-American population of any Northern city. National Geographic did a segment in Philadelphia regarding the African-American community, and went deeper, to show many different sides of Philadelphia's African-American population.
Lincoln University is in nearby Oxford. It is the first degree-granting historically black university in the USA.
i love how you consistently act as if you speak for all NYers. for many new york transplants, the grass IS greener down here. everybody is not the same.
in my personal experience, it's usually black new yorkers who came from the projects that have moved down south, LOVE IT, and ain't lookin back. i don't blame them one bit. many of them are thriving in ways they never could have imagined back home
and i love how you consistently act like you lack reading comprehension skills. odd, given that this is a message board.
i have repeatedly said that i speak based off of my own personal experiences.
ny is for the strong. don't like it then get out (isn't that what a lot of southerners say about the south?). we'll be fine. always have been, always will be. isn't it funny how you don't hear nyers complaining about southerners in ny complaining about ny but you hear southerners complaining about nyers living in the south? why is that??
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there are plenty of places in the urban south where one can look out their window and see activity. you need to start educating yourself about other places besides your city
and there are a lot more places where you cannot. also consider the city that most nyers in the south compare the city they currently live in to. nyc.
instead of assuming what i know, you should read my posts in their entirety. i have lived in various regions and two countries...and i graduated from college four years ago. i'm pretty well rounded and educated.
Half of what you said is trash. First off, if you move to middle of bumblefukc GA or Alabama or whatever of course there is not going to be sh*t to do. You have to go to live in reasonably sized or major city( New Orleans, Atlanta, Houston, Miami etc) to see daily activity and things to do. Obviously, only handful of cities in the world are going to compare with NYC when it comes to activity but if you are going to talk about the south in general you have to do the same for the whole north east out side of NYC also and with that the south is vary comparable in its larger cities.
ok...in the SE, if you want to do something from dc down its six hours between cities. six hours from dc to charlotte and another six to atl. its more than six to miami from atl. dc is nice...charlotte not so much IMHO. atl is nice and miami is nice but none of these cities compare to what you get in the NE. thats my personal opinion tho.
in comparison, in the NE, its pretty much 2-3 hours between cities. nyc to philly or nyc to boston. nyc to jersey city/hoboken. etc.
going back to what i said earlier tho, one can move from nyc to say...atl and still be bored with it. i think you or somebody else mentioned that happening and ppl from nyc telling them how boring their city was. they said it, not me.
my response to that should have been good enough for you. like i have said before, don't move from the NE looking for the NE. you won't find it. go to the SE with an open mind.
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Second, I don't know what you do for a living or where you lived but most people will tell you that everything does not equal out when it comes to pay vs. cost of living in cities like San Fran and NYC. Even people from NYC will tell you this, not to mention other expensive east cost cities. I see these complaints all over the board. If this was the case then there would be a great migration of people to places like NYC, or LA, San Fran or Boston. Why not if it all equals out?
don't worry about what i do or where i've lived, just know that i know what i'm talking about.
most ppl don't realize that a lower (or higher) cost of living does not necessarily mean a higher or lower quality of life. there are many factors that ppl don't consider when choosing an area to live in.
you have to do what works for you. just like you see complaints across the board, you should notice the complaints ppl from the north living in the south have about the south. i'm sure you hear them a lot and are tired of them like every other southerner on CD.
as for the second great migration, the statistics supposedly show a slowdown or ppl moving to the south. there should be slowdown across the country because the economy and job market is terrible. ppl aren't able to do what they would like. ppl are stagnant right now because finances are an issue.
a lot of ppl also buy into word of mouth in the north. i made a post about it in another thread but ppl are picking up and leaving based off of a few words and ending up screwed. it is what it is.
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The truth is people in the south start looking to buy there first home around age 25 while in the expensive cities like NYC they usually have to wait till they are in there 30s or move somewhere cheaper. This is not a an illusion dude. If so then everyone would try to live in NYC or San Fran. I've seen the housing cost and wages for many fields across the country. The places that pay the most, namely California and East Coast cities rarely ever equal out in the cost on living, especially considering tax in some place like NYC.
like i said, you get what you pay for. i don't buy into the american dream being that you have to own a home. at 25 i want to go where i want to go. what if i want to pick up and move? how when i own a home and am paying mortgage? what if i want to sell? how in this economy and housing market?
what if i get another job? what if my job lays me off? what if i'm transferred? etc. etc. why bog myself down by owning a home so early when i can save and be a lil more mobile.
also, yes, ppl in the south at 25 are trying to cop houses but they're also not making a lot of money and if they ever had the desire to move here (and believe me, many ppl do)the probably couldn't because of the baggage they have and the low wages. you also pay for gas, maintenance on your vehicle, repairs on your house, etc.
i prefer what i prefer and i don't give a damn if somebody else doesn't. do you and i'll do me. those of us in sf and nyc are good. if you're in the south and you're doing good then thats cool.
one last thing...and i'd really like to not have to go on and on responding to this...
but in nyc, i like it because i have access to whatever i want whenever i want and many options on how i get there. i don't like driving like that.
i have access to like 22 different train lines via the nyc subway (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, J, L, M, N, Q, R, S, Z, 1-7) a tram, a ferry, long island buses, staten island railway, metro north, gypsy cabs, "regular" cabs, nyc buses, etc. oh yeah. and the path train if i want to go to jersey.
the trains run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
the city never sleeps.
the job market here is decent. its not what it was but its better than a lot of areas.
the job market has more of a variety than many other places and there is so much wealth here to obtain. we did not put all of our eggs in one basket like say...a charlotte (bank industry).
example: where else can you work at mtv, nbc, cbs, abc, fox, sony, def jam, etc. for random moguls as a personal assistant, intern for murakami, work at ubs, societe generale, etc etc.??
yes, the cost of living is higher than other areas but what other areas are like nyc? there are none. 0.
i get on a train and am in manhattan in a lil bit. and thats by choice. i could be closer, but home is home (my area of queens). i choose to live here.
i walk a few blocks to go to a bodega or the grocery store or a fruit stand, etc. and pass by all types of ppl of various cultures/ethnicities/races.
i sit on the train next to a bunch of guyanese indians, pakistanis, chinese and central american ppl.
you walk from your house to your driveway and get in your car and drive to work. you get out and walk to your office or cubicle with your view of some trees, grass, etc. your city is made up of mainly black and white ppl with a few "others" sprinkled in for good measure. maybe you get a view of downtown from your office window.
and thats fine but its no 6th ave (ave of the americas).
anyway, you go to walmart to shop for groceries, the mall to shop for clothes, etc.
i go to mom and pop stores. i have access to things you can only find on the internet or through a connect that lives here.
i prefer it that way. maybe you prefer your way of life and thats cool.
Location: Metro Atlanta (Sandy Springs), by way of Macon, GA
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Considering that the south is where our roots are in this country, several small and mid-sized cities have very rich African American culture down here. My city of Macon, GA has a rich African American heritage, as well as Augusta, Albany (GA), Little Rock, Montgomery, Mobile, Baton Rouge, Shreveport and several others.
Sorry to keep dwelling, but I'm STILL shocked about Montgomery, I dont think I've saw anybody else mention it.
And as mentioned earlier on this page, you CAN NOT forget about the entire Mississippi Delta area.
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