[Davy-040]

African-American % in Florida:

1880: 47.0% (No.5 highest in the country)
1890: 42.5%
1900: 43.7%
1910: 41.0%
1920: 34.0%
1930: 29.4%
1940: 27.1%
1950: 21.8%
1960: 17.8%
1970: 15.3%
1980: 13.8% (No.14 highest in the country)

[OptimusPrime69]

Some left for work "up north" especially in the late 19th and beginning of the 20th century..... but also Florida's population has grown so much and so fast starting from the 50s onward that the proportion of blacks as a whole declined as people from "up north" moved south for better climate, cheaper housing, jobs, etc... so the proportion of AAs fell, while their numbers remained relatively stable and even grew.

[Mutiny77]

The Great Migration aside, it's not so much that a lot of Blacks left Florida; it's the fact that a ton of other people moved into Florida.

[AntonioR]

Looking at those numbers, my guess is that now its probably less than 10%.

For some reason I want to think most of them lived in north Florida while central and south Florida is where most northerners probably moved to.

Does anyone know if the composition of Florida blacks has changed too? I'm referring to whether the average Florida black now is more of a mixed race type compared to how it was in the past or is the effect of racial segregation still a huge influence in their composition.

[Chicago60614]

I think it's because more people were moving in. I mean Florida had far fewer people than Iowa up until 1950....

[ckhthankgod]

Originally Posted by Mutiny77

The Great Migration aside, it's not so much that a lot of Blacks left Florida; it's the fact that a ton of other people moved into Florida.

^This......It is a combination of many Black people from Florida moving to the North and many people of other backgrounds moving into Florida. 14% sounds about right for Florida, by the way.

[Davy-040]

The 1910's had a 7% drop of African-Americans in Florida, while the State only grew by 216.000.
How can you explain that?

[JAS]

Originally Posted by Davy-040

The 1910's had a 7% drop of African-Americans in Florida, while the State only grew by 216.000.
How can you explain that?

Florida's population in 1920 was still under 1 million (968,000), which placed it around the bottom-third of the most populous U.S. states. A population increase of "only" 216,000 was a large increase for the state, and my guess is that a very large majority of those moving into the state were not A-A.

[expatCA]

Originally Posted by JAS

Florida's population in 1920 was still under 1 million (968,000), which placed it around the bottom-third of the most populous U.S. states. A population increase of "only" 216,000 was a large increase for the state, and my guess is that a very large majority of those moving into the state were not A-A.

The population is about the average for the US, so basically what wouldnormally be expected.

[StarfishKey]

This is not a mystery. Segregation. Jim Crow, which was really strict even as far South as Miami. Racism, including poor pay, poor education for low income kids, and lots of racial profiling by cops, well after legal segregation had ended. Opportunities were way better up North, and in California. That was true all over the South. Florida was no friendly place to be.

I have trouble understanding if you can think to look up this information, and choose to use those years specifically, how you could not have already known that this was the answer. 1880-1980 seems pretty specifically to revolve around major changes in socioeconomic and legal status of African-Americans and people of color in this country. So I'm not sure what the point of asking is, but the answer is obvious. People went where they could get good paying jobs, and where they would be allowed to leave their own house after 8PM without showing some legal written proof of why they needed to be out of the house. Any person with common sense would leave if they had the money or the means to do so.


Read this article on conditions in Miami 1940-1970 for Black Caribbean and African-American people, and ask yourself if you would have stayed, if you could have chosen to go somewhere where you were free and treated like a human being instead: http://www.redalyc.org/pdf/392/39211247001.pdf