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“During the five years before the 1962 Peyton Forest panic, for instance, nearly 30,000 whites had abandoned the city. Afterward, the numbers only grew larger. In 1960 the total white population of Atlanta stood at barely more than 300,000. Over the course of that decade, roughly 60,000 whites fled from Atlanta. During the 1970s, another 100,000 would leave as well.”
So let’s not throw around a blanket "2 decades off on your timeline" on white flight.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I would venture to say that you probably saw 2 to 3 signs like the ones you are describing on white 8.5 x 11 paper posted by a random person who knows when. Because you saw these signs on route to SW Atlanta near 285, you assumed that the entire community is intolerant toward white people. There are similar signs around Krog Street tunnel. And along the Eastside trail. Do you avoid these areas too?
By your logic, that is like me saying I saw a few random blue/all lives matter signs on the way to Candler Park and although it is excellent in every way, I cannot live there because they wouldn’t welcome someone like me. A bigot is someone who is not tolerant of the views of others — when has that been illustrated in your opinion?
Candler Park is 84%-88% white and around 4% Black. So I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s the bastion of diversity and inclusitivity that you are proclaiming it to be. Nevertheless, there are more white Atlantans that can afford to live in Niskey Lake and Cascade Heights than there are black Atlantans who can afford to live in Candler Park.
Remember a while back when you said that public schools in south and west Atlanta do not want white/diverse enrollment (and was utterly incorrect)? Well you are similarly grossly inaccurate with regard to this situation as well.
You may have heard of some push back about affluent whites moving into poor or low-income areas with little regard for the current residents. And even then, the rationale isn’t the same as when blacks were discouraged from moving into white areas back in the day. Like you say, look at the context. These areas in question are predominantly black, but not poor. They care about their home values just as much as you do. Also, when white people move into minority communities, the value often increases.
Believe it on not, it is possible for people of different backgrounds and ethnicities to co-exist. Nobody in the affluent areas of SW Atlanta along Cascade is discouraging white people from moving in. At this point, I think you’re just making excuses.
Lastly, you frequently mention the demographics of the city rapidly and inevitably changing (by becoming more white/affluent, etc). But based on the link above, are white people really moving to all those mostly black areas of the city at the rate you are saying? How long do you think it would take for all those predominantly black areas in the linked map to become predominately white? Remember, the City of Atlanta is way more than what’s a few miles outside the BeltLine.
Nowhere have I mentioned where anyone is moving specifically only that as a person of any color if I saw signs that said don't sell your home to anyone who isn't a specific color or ethnicity I'm not moving to that area. I don't want to be a part of bigotry. White people don't have to move to Black neighborhoods for demographics to change. They can move anywhere in the city proper and change the demographics. A white person moving to Morningside counts the same as one moving to Grove Park. The city of Atlanta was 67% black in 1990 and that number has been moving the other way at a steady pace ever since it is a trend. Trends come and go. Neighborhoods change. This isn't to say that in the coming years the trends shift a different direction. Look back to the articles on Pittsburgh that were posted on here and the divisive rhetoric and tactics being used to try and stop 'outsiders' from moving in. It isn't the white neighborhoods who are putting up signs to not sell, vote, or do business with black people you realize that don't you?
Nowhere have I mentioned where anyone is moving specifically only that as a person of any color if I saw signs that said don't sell your home to anyone who isn't a specific color or ethnicity I'm not moving to that area. I don't want to be a part of bigotry. White people don't have to move to Black neighborhoods for demographics to change. They can move anywhere in the city proper and change the demographics. A white person moving to Morningside counts the same as one moving to Grove Park. The city of Atlanta was 67% black in 1990 and that number has been moving the other way at a steady pace ever since it is a trend. Trends come and go. Neighborhoods change. This isn't to say that in the coming years the trends shift a different direction. Look back to the articles on Pittsburgh that were posted on here and the divisive rhetoric and tactics being used to try and stop 'outsiders' from moving in. It isn't the white neighborhoods who are putting up signs to not sell, vote, or do business with black people you realize that don't you?
So where is this diversity that you say you value so much? You're basically saying that the city will become predominantly white, but basically remain segregated? Grove Park residents were never against white people -- the black and white people in that community were against being taken advantage of and the displacement of large segments of their community (from corporations that do not have the community in mind).
As I said earlier, Pittsburgh is a "middle class new resident/poor old resident" situation, which may create more friction. The debate was about putting a fridge for the homeless in a public park -- and the people doing it didn't even live there.
Cascade Heights and similar neighborhoods are an entirely different situation.
Last edited by equinox63; 05-07-2021 at 08:13 AM..
White people moving to the suburbs for larger lots, cheaper homes, cheaper property taxes, better services, better schools, etc. was not strictly based on racism. Were some of them racist? I have no doubt. It also enabled black people to buy homes. What happened to those homes or neighborhoods after white people left has nothing to do with them. Just if I sell my home to someone and they don't take care of it that's not my problem. You seem to have the opinion that white people moving out = bad and white people moving in = bad. You can't have it both ways. In fact black people who have the opportunity to build wealth today are being told not to sell their homes. So you can't speak of this opportunity as not being there when it is offered and not taken. You are speaking out of both sides of your mouth and wanting it both ways which isn't possible.
While the mass exodus began in earnest in the 60's, to say that white flight didn't occur until then would mean willfully ignoring the transition of neighborhoods like Mozely Park which was done by the mid 50's. Where do you think the growing black population was going That transition begin sweeping through many neighborhoods from Mozely down to Pittsburg and on over to Summerhill and Old Fourth Ward as early as the turn of the century in some cases. These transitions enabled the clear path for I-20 which largely followed the Highway and transportation plan for Atlanta, Georgia of 1946, and cut through neighborhoods that had transitioned from white or mixed to largely black. That same interstate system that would help usher in the suburbs and more massive white flight soon thereafter.
To think that white families simply left for bigger lots, less taxes and better schools willfully ignores a well documented history of the fight against black encroachment and the flight once it failed.
A small percentage of black families achieving the means to move into wealthier white neighborhoods can not replace the mass exodus of almost the entire tax base of that neighborhood, followed by the economies they supported in those areas. What fills the void, poorer residents, renters, drugs, crime, urban decay, etc...
I never said white people moving in was bad, I don't even agree with that. I can see the logic and reason behind the motives though because i see these things in the context of a multi-century, multi-generational struggle for equality. Just like i can see through the argument of people being told to play by a set of rules in a game that had a different set of rules for them for as long as they have been on this land, while being told to simply ignore the disadvantages they face that were brought upon by never being on equal footing. These things simply can't be viewed as "black and white" as some would like them to be.
A small percentage of black families achieving the means to move into wealthier white neighborhoods can not replace the mass exodus of almost the entire tax base of that neighborhood, followed by the economies they supported in those areas. What fills the void, poorer residents, renters, drugs, crime, urban decay, etc...
Doesn't this statement in itself sound racist? Your saying that when whites sold their homes to new black homeowners, this led to "poorer residents, drugs, crime, urban decay, etc..."
This sounds like words that a white racist might have said in the early 1960's when neighborhoods in SW Atlanta were going through transition.
This begs the question, "If blacks and any other ethnic group have the legal right to purchase houses, at the same time, do whites not have an equal right to sell their homes? "
The reality is that by the early 1960's the resale market for these homes no longer included whites. Obviously, there were blacks who wanted to buy them, so given the "free hand of the market", the homes sold to those who wanted to and could afford to purchase them.
I don't know how you can get around this in a free country, unless you have some sort of Housing Board which has racial quotas determining how many of each race can purchase homes in each neighborhood.
Final thought, many of those new residents of SW Atlanta who purchased homes were later, in the early 1990's, pressuring the Fulton County Commission to prohibit the construction of apartments near the intersection of Cascade Rd. and I-285 because they said, "All of the apartments built in this area later become Section 8 and we don't want that near our homes." So, as a result, the Fulton County Commission used the Power of Eminent Domain and purchased the property (even though it had been zoned for apartments since the early 1960's) and made a public park there. These black homeowners sound a lot like white residents in the northern suburbs who have also opposed the construction of lower rent apartments in their neighborhoods.
Housing policy from the federal level to the local level was explicitly written for the suburbs to be segregated for White people during the White flight era of the 1950 and 1960s. White people wrote laws, lending standards and covenants that stated unequivocally that they wanted to keep Black people segregated from them. People moved to the suburbs because they knew Black people were prohibited from following them in all but the rarest cases. There is no other explanation for White flight during that period than racism.
I lived through White flight in my childhood neighborhood. Our next door neighbors were the first Black family on the block. Unlike the vast majority of their White neighbors they both held graduate degrees. However, they were Black so panic selling ensued and within roughly five years most of the White households had moved, often as little as a mile away since we lived just barely inside the city limits.
Of course White flight hasn’t ceased and it’s still motivated by bigotry whether it’s White people abandoning Snellville to escape Black people or White people abandoning South Forsyth schools to escape Asian families. White people are the one and only group in this country who can be reliably expected to leave when more than a smallish number of people of any other race move in. Residential and school segregation happen because of the behavior of White people. There’s literally no other explanation for it the pathetic attempts of White people to rationalize their bigoted behavior notwithstanding.
Housing policy from the federal level to the local level was explicitly written for the suburbs to be segregated for White people during the White flight era of the 1950 and 1960s. White people wrote laws, lending standards and covenants that stated unequivocally that they wanted to keep Black people segregated from them. People moved to the suburbs because they knew Black people were prohibited from following them in all but the rarest cases. There is no other explanation for White flight during that period than racism.
I lived through White flight in my childhood neighborhood. Our next door neighbors were the first Black family on the block. Unlike the vast majority of their White neighbors they both held graduate degrees. However, they were Black so panic selling ensued and within roughly five years most of the White households had moved, often as little as a mile away since we lived just barely inside the city limits.
Of course White flight hasn’t ceased and it’s still motivated by bigotry whether it’s White people abandoning Snellville to escape Black people or White people abandoning South Forsyth schools to escape Asian families. White people are the one and only group in this country who can be reliably expected to leave when more than a smallish number of people of any other race move in. Residential and school segregation happen because of the behavior of White people. There’s literally no other explanation for it the pathetic attempts of White people to rationalize their bigoted behavior notwithstanding.
How do you explain the black flight from the city in the same timeframe to Clayton and DeKalb counties? Pretty much any person who had the means to do such was leaving the city for cheaper suburbs that had better schools, services, etc at the time. Wasn’t just white people. How do you rationalize the bigotry and bigoted behavior of SW Atlanta in present day who do not want anyone moving in who doesn’t look like them?
How do you explain the black flight from the city in the same timeframe to Clayton and DeKalb counties? Pretty much any person who had the means to do such was leaving the city for cheaper suburbs that had better schools, services, etc at the time. Wasn’t just white people. How do you rationalize the bigotry and bigoted behavior of SW Atlanta in present day who do not want anyone moving in who doesn’t look like them?
I don’t have to explain Black flight to Clayton or DeKalb in the 50s and 60s because it didn’t happen. As for subsequent migration of Black people to the suburbs, when people are denied access to something, suburban housing for example, they tend to gravitate toward it at the first opportunity to do so. Moreover, their movement wasn’t racially motivated and as Black people moved to the suburbs it triggered new waves of White flight.
The facts are that the most intense residential segregation in the US is between White and Black people. Black people don’t flee when White people arrive. You can set your watch to White flight from Black people it’s so damn reliable. You’re trying to conger a phenomenon, racially motivated Black migration away from people of other races, that doesn’t exist and that no one other than fellow racism deniers are ever going to fall for it.
I can understand being worried about displacement and being priced out of one’s neighborhood. The fact is White people have the wealth to force Black people out of their neighborhoods and it does happen. The inverse isn’t possible and doesn’t happen, ever. That said posting signs about it is pointless.
Doesn't this statement in itself sound racist? Your saying that when whites sold their homes to new black homeowners, this led to "poorer residents, drugs, crime, urban decay, etc..."
This sounds like words that a white racist might have said in the early 1960's when neighborhoods in SW Atlanta were going through transition.
Why would something that happened in cities across this nation sound racist, it's fact. There was no one for one transition of homes from white to black families on equal economic footing. That black middle class did not exist in numbers anywhere near enough to make that happen, and is still pretty far off from their white counterparts even today. Comparing races, just look at average income, home income, percentage of home ownership, family wealth, and almost any other economic measure during that period and then changes from that period to now and that should be painfully obvious. When white wealth left, there was very little black wealth to move in and replace it. Where do you think all the abandoned properties in these neighborhoods come from? Why do you think the percentage of renters grows while homeowners shrink? So the initial black families may have been looking to join and fully integrate with the middle class experience, and many of those who followed as white families began the exodus, but eventually you start seeing those who different value sets, educational background, financial abilities/stability and commitment to property upkeep. Eventually blacks with the means to do so will abandon it also, in chase of the American dream they were after to begin with. Guess what happened when they joined their counterparts in the suburbs?
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This begs the question, "If blacks and any other ethnic group have the legal right to purchase houses, at the same time, do whites not have an equal right to sell their homes? "
The reality is that by the early 1960's the resale market for these homes no longer included whites. Obviously, there were blacks who wanted to buy them, so given the "free hand of the market", the homes sold to those who wanted to and could afford to purchase them.
I don't know how you can get around this in a free country, unless you have some sort of Housing Board which has racial quotas determining how many of each race can purchase homes in each neighborhood.
As stated above, this isn't what happened? Though I would rather see diverse neighborhoods, even this would have been a satisfactory result. The aforementioned Cascade Heights neighborhood is a great example of this. One of the few examples of neighborhoods being able to replace the exodus of wealth with like wealth. But don't forget what the prior residents and power structure did to prevent those uppity black folk from moving in.
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Final thought, many of those new residents of SW Atlanta who purchased homes were later, in the early 1990's, pressuring the Fulton County Commission to prohibit the construction of apartments near the intersection of Cascade Rd. and I-285 because they said, "All of the apartments built in this area later become Section 8 and we don't want that near our homes." So, as a result, the Fulton County Commission used the Power of Eminent Domain and purchased the property (even though it had been zoned for apartments since the early 1960's) and made a public park there. These black homeowners sound a lot like white residents in the northern suburbs who have also opposed the construction of lower rent apartments in their neighborhoods.
You are correct. Please see my earlier statement in this post. These folks are trying to build better communities to raise raise families, obtain generational wealth and educate and propel their children on to do the same or better. Grow the black middle class and upper middle class, which is only true antidote to the persistent poverty, crime, and lack of achievement that plagues much of the black community in general. It's complex brother and a lot of that complexity exist within racial lines but across socioeconomic ones. As the reverse migration of blacks with wealth back to the south continues i would expect you will see more of this as they deal with the same issues other deal with.
I don’t have to explain Black flight to Clayton or DeKalb in the 50s and 60s because it didn’t happen. As for subsequent migration of Black people to the suburbs, when people are denied access to something, suburban housing for example, they tend to gravitate toward it at the first opportunity to do so. Moreover, their movement wasn’t racially motivated and as Black people moved to the suburbs it triggered new waves of White flight.
The facts are that the most intense residential segregation in the US is between White and Black people. Black people don’t flee when White people arrive. You can set your watch to White flight from Black people it’s so damn reliable. You’re trying to conger a phenomenon, racially motivated Black migration away from people of other races, that doesn’t exist and that no one other than fellow racism deniers are ever going to fall for it.
I can understand being worried about displacement and being priced out of one’s neighborhood. The fact is White people have the wealth to force Black people out of their neighborhoods and it does happen. The inverse isn’t possible and doesn’t happen, ever. That said posting signs about it is pointless.
Black flight absolutely happened specifically to Clayton and DeKalb in the late 60’s and 70’s and lasted into the 80’s.
Part of it is simply the quest for ER and the freedom to have one's own vehicle.
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