Between 1950 and 1960, the Census Bureau has reported, the South experienced a net out-migration of about 1,457,000 Negroes. The figure represents the number of Negroes that census enumerators of 1960 would have expected to find in the South if the Negro populations of 1950 had stayed put and had experienced a normal increase of births over deaths. Alabama, which should have gained 225,000 Negroes on this basis, gained only 1000 in the decade; South Carolina, which normally would have gained 226,000 Negroes, gained only 8000. Mississippi actually experienced a net loss in Negro population, from 986,000 in 1950 to 915,000 in 1960.
Where did these Negro migrants go? To the North, primarily—more than a million of them. Others went west: California experienced a net in-migration of 354,000 Negroes. Large numbers moved to Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan. The migration was almost entirely to Northern cities, and ironically, to urban societies of the North almost as segregated by geography as the Old South is segregated by custom.
Yet for all the steady decline of Negro components in Southern States, it still is true that the South, as a region, houses the largest concentration of colored citizens. Of the fifteen States that in 1960 had more than 500,000 Negro residents, all but four (New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey) were in the South. The thirteen Southern States that were 35 per cent Negro in 1900 were still 21 per cent Negro in 1960, and in 140 Southern counties, white residents in 1960 remained numerically in the minority.
Consider some further statistics:
Urban and Rural Population
Thirteen Southern States, 1900-1960.
| Per cent Rural | |||||||
| State | Urban 1960 | Rural 1960 | Total 1960 | 1900 | 1920 | 1940 | 1960 |
| Alabama | 1,791,721 | 1,475,019 | 3,266,740 | 89.0 | 78.3 | 65.2 | 45.2 |
| Arkansas | 765,303 | 1,020,969 | 1,786,212 | 91.5 | 83.4 | 77.2 | 57.1 |
| Florida | 3,661,383 | 1,290,177 | 4,951,560 | 79.7 | 63.5 | 44.9 | 26.0 |
| Georgia | 2,180,236 | 1,762,880 | 3,943,116 | 84.4 | 74.9 | 65.6 | 44.7 |
| Kentucky | 1,353,215 | 1,684,941 | 3,038,156 | 78.2 | 73.8 | 70.2 | 55.4 |
| Louisiana | 2,060,606 | 1,196,416 | 3,257,022 | 74.5 | 65.1 | 58.5 | 36.7 |
| Mississippi | 820,805 | 1,357,336 | 2,178,141 | 92.3 | 86.6 | 80.2 | 62.3 |
| North Carolina | 1,801,921 | 2,754,234 | 4,556,155 | 91.1 | 80.8 | 72.7 | 60.4 |
| Oklahoma | 1,464,786 | 863,498 | 2,328,284 | 92.6 | 73.5 | 62.4 | 37.0 |
| South Carolina | 981,386 | 1,401,208 | 2,382,594 | 87.2 | 82.5 | 75.5 | 58.8 |
| Tennessee | 1,864,828 | 1,702,261 | 3,567,089 | 86.5 | 73.9 | 64.8 | 47.7 |
| Texas | 7,187,470 | 2,392,207 | 9,579,677 | 82.9 | 67.6 | 54.6 | 24.9 |
| Virginia | 2,204,913 | 1,762,036 | 3,966,949 | 81.7 | 70.8 | 64.7 | 44.4 |
These figures, as I hope to demonstrate after a while, should be treated with some reserve, but on their own they tell a revolutionary tale. Of the twelve States that were firmly rural in 1940, only North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Mississippi were found predominantly rural in 1960. This migration from the countryside has seen the number of farms in the South drop from 3,100,000 in 1910 to 1,650,000 in 1959; the number of farms either owned or operated by Negroes has dropped from 890,000 to 272,000 in the same period.
In many aspects, to be sure, the census of 1960 found the South hardly changed at all. The region still is composed overwhelmingly of native-born Americans; except for Florida and Texas, none of the thirteen States has as much as four-tenths of 1 per cent foreign-born population. Southerners still are moving out of the South more rapidly than non-Southerners are moving in, but the Southern tendency to stay put remains much in evidence: 90 per cent of the citizens of Mississippi were born there, and the percentage is almost as high in Alabama and the Carolinas.
In terms of material wealth, our people remain relatively poor. Per capita incomes in 1959 ranged from $1162 in Mississippi to $1980 in Florida, against a national average of $2166. Wages in the thirteen States then averaged $73.31 weekly and $1.82 hourly, far below national averages of $90.91 and $2.29. As one consequence, housing conditions are sadly below par. The 1960 census found, in the country as a whole, 18.8 per cent of all dwellings “dilapidated or lacking plumbing facilities”; the percentages were 49.2 in Mississippi, 44.9 in Arkansas, and 41.2 in Kentucky; and no State outside the South approached these poor ratings.
The picture is not entirely bleak. Poor as they are, the Southern States in general are exerting a much greater effort than their wealthier Northern sisters. Over the country as a whole, State and local governments in 1959 raised $102.12 per capita from their own tax sources. Seven of the thirteen Southern States were far above this average: Mississippi, for example, raised $128.76 per capita from local sources, a figure that compares with $108.92 in New York, $83.56 in Connecticut, and $81.51 in Delaware. With much less to levy upon, the Southern States proportionately are pouring more into their schools. And the outlook is brightening steadily. Between 1929 and 1959, while the nation as a whole was increasing its per capita personal incomes by 208 per cent, South Carolina was jumping 393 per cent and Louisiana 280 per cent.