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The North (particularly the urban areas) has been invented and reinvented by the waves of "outsiders" who have migrated in successive waves for the past 200 years. They came from various countries in Europe, and to lesser extent, from the Carrribean, from Asia and the Middle East, and now from Africa and Latin America. And one of the most profound changes to northern cities was the Great Migration of blacks from the South. And don't forget to a smaller extent by white Southerners to the manufacturing centers. So the point is, welcome to our world. The South isn't "disappearing" any more than New York or Chicago or Detroit disappeared. They just changed. Change can be good, change can be bad, but change is always a constant in our country. It just arrived later to the South than to the North.
As far as Atlanta goes, Northerners have been migrating here since the city's inception. We're very accustomed to ingress from 'up there'...it's just a part of our lives and no big deal at all.
FWIW, my own family has been Southern as long as it has been American. Arriving in Fairfax Co, VA in 1670, they spent about 150 years in Chester County, SC before settling in DeKalb County, GA in 1822.
Oddly enough some of my ancestors fought for the Confederacy. I'm in and from VT. My ancestors were on both sides, literally brothers fighting each other sometimes (in the same battles on occasion). And I'm a secessionist myself.
Wow, last time I checked we were free to move anywhere we wanted. How boring if we all stayed in the place we were born and never moved! And how incredibly closed minded to think people should do that!
What percentage of Southerners currently have ancestors who lived down here during the Civil War and what percentage have ancestors who moved down here from up North recently?
Sorry if this is a "close minded" question, but Southerners have every right to feel uncomfortable about the North-South migration going on. It bugs me that the South may possibly disappear. It especially irritates me considering that so many of the Northerners who move down here hate our guts, but yet at the same time they appear to be oddly obsessed with us by coming here. What is the deal?
How would you Northerners feel if a bunch of people from Alabama started invading New York etc...?
This is laughable! Do you not know anything about slaves moving north? What about all those people that moved up to places like Michigan, Ohio, Pa, Ny, etc. to work in the coal mines, steel mills, auto plants and other factories during the past 100 years????
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Other northern cities attracted newcomers as well. This was not an entirely new phenomenon; black southerners had been moving north ever since the northern states prohibited slavery during the years following the American Revolution.
Many of the people i know that are moving south are forced to because they need jobs. My brother and several other people i know have had to move south to find teaching jobs which aren't plentiful in Ohio, Michigan and Pa. Funny thing is my brother teaches school in Jacksonville, NC, which is the home of Camp Lejuene............not all military people are from the south........are you pissed that they moved there too????
I'm guessing a lot of the criminals in our inner cities are descended from southerners. When i worked in the auto industry many of my older coworkers had moved up to the Youngstown area from the south to work in the mills. I also know that many of their children are lowlifes that sell drugs and don't work. Their parents are nice, hardworking people, but apparently they couldn't keep their kids out of trouble. Some of these people's children were also murdered due to their lifestyle.
I'm guessing a lot of the criminals in our inner cities are descended from southerners. When i worked in the auto industry many of my older coworkers had moved up to the Youngstown area from the south to work in the mills. I also know that many of their children are lowlifes that sell drugs and don't work. Their parents are nice, hardworking people, but apparently they couldn't keep their kids out of trouble. Some of these people's children were also murdered due to their lifestyle.[/quote]
If you are going to bash the South, let's be more specific here. Who exactly was it from the South that is now commiting crimes in the Northern cities? We all know the answer. No need to be PC.
I'm not bashing the south, i'm just saying that a lot of my former inner city coworkers (originally from the south) had children who committed crimes...........not all the kids, but a good portion of them. If you want me to be specific on race i'm talking about mostly black people (Warren is about 25% black, Youngstown is about 45%), but there are some white inner city kids that committed crimes too.
This is my experience. I'm not out to bash the south or black people. I"m just passing on what i saw at work.
I should also clarify that we also have a lot of former white southerners in our area as well, but they mostly came from Kentucky and West Virginia, where most of our black southerners came from states like Mississippi and Alabama.
I'm not sure I understand the point of this thread...are residents with southern ancestry supposed to feel "threatend" by people relocating from outside of the South? I have to say that most people who have the idea that northerners are obsessed with or hate them probably have some deeper issues of paranoia or egocentrism.
I had never even thought about such things before reading them in this forum - and I think that this is the only place these feelings exist for the most part...in cyberland. I'm not sure why my having southern ancestry would cause me to be resentful or territorial in any way...I didn't actually "know" any of these relatives who lived in the South 150 years ago, and I don't have any sympathy for ignorance or ignorant causes.
I have ancestors on both sides of my family who fought in the Civil War - and all of them were on the confederate side. I have sevice records and journals for some of them, and it seems that the majority of them were actually forced to enlist. One in particular went into hiding so he could continue helping support his family of several children, but was tracked down and sent to fight anyway...and was killed, leaving a wife to support a bunch of young children. From what I understand, this was the situation with many soldiers, especially in states like North Carolina where there wasn't a lot of support for the war.
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