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It's actually probably 50-55% now. As for why, apparently a lot of slaves who were manumissioned by their owners would move to the District because they couldn't stay in their state. Also because of the Great Migration.
It's actually probably 50-55% now. As for why, apparently a lot of slaves who were manumissioned by their owners would move to the District because they couldn't stay in their state. Also because of the Great Migration.
Why couldn't they stay in their state? What's the Great Migration; migration of blacks to DC?
Great Migration was basically a migration of blacks to the North to escape the ****ty life in the South. As for why they couldn't stay in their state, I'm not sure.
for why they couldn't stay in their state, I'm not sure.
Because it was very difficult to prove freed status, and many blacks who were freed were subsequently reenslaved if they stayed in a slave state.
That said, DC was little more than a big town until the Civil War. Then it got a big influx of both blacks and Northern-sympathizing whites from the South.
Because it was very difficult to prove freed status, and many blacks who were freed were subsequently reenslaved if they stayed in a slave state.
That said, DC was little more than a big town until the Civil War. Then it got a big influx of both blacks and Northern-sympathizing whites from the South.
For anyone interested, "The Warmth of Other Suns" is the title of a popular new book just out , on the subject of the Great Migration. The author was interviewed on PBS-TV "book world" this month.
Geographically, Washington and Baltimore (south of the Mason-Dixon line) were two of the first cities black people came to when they were migrating northward from the South for better opportunities. The railroad line from heavily-black areas of eastern NC and SC led directly into Washington. Many escaped slaves, and later newly-freed slaves, settled in Washington just after the Civil War. Also the Federal government is known for equal-opportunity hiring and promotion practices (at least this is true within the last 30-40 years). Black people know this, and it's why the Fed Govt is top-heavy with black employees (well, at least some agencies such as D-HHS, D-HUD, and D-Educ, are). Also, DC has Howard University, one of the premier historically black colleges (and which includes one of only two historically black medical-schools in the USA - the other one being Nashville's Meharry).
Another reason is that DC proper has only 61 (land) square miles within its city limits, and its population only makes up roughly 15% of so its entire greater metropolitan area population. Compare this with other cities like NYC (defined as 5 boroughs) and Chicago, whose core-city populations make up about 40% of their metropolitan areas. Therefore, when you're measuring anything in DC, you're capturing a relatively smaller concentrated core population - more of a true "inner city".
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