|
|
|
REVIEWS
| The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America. By James N. Gregory (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. xiv plus 446 pp.).
|
| Before reading this book, I thought Jacqueline Jones' The Dispossessed thoroughly covered this topic. However, James Gregory, best known for his pioneering work, American Exodus on white southern migration to California, has added impressively to the body of literature on what he argues should be referred to as a "Diaspora" involving southern migrants. This well-researched and documented work will now be required reading for historians and sociologists interested in the impact of internal migration on American society. Gregory states in the introduction that rather than seeking to fill a gap in the history of migration, his book provides a comprehensive "historical study of the Southern Diaspora in its entirety." (p.5) Gregory defines this Southern Diaspora as "an era and process of exceptionally heavy population movement out of the South." (p.11) He sets in motion black and white southerners and delineates their shared experiences of migration. Gregory considers the fate of these two groups intertwined once they left the South, arguing that they were active in reshaping American culture, politics, and race relations. Gregory shows the role of the media and social scientists in shaping and interpreting the departure, arrival, and settlement of southerners in cities, and the ways in which images of black and white southerners became embedded in the American consciousness. |
1
|
|
As in American Exodus, Gregory makes excellent use of Public Use Micro Data to conclude that more than twice as many whites than blacks left the South in the twentieth century. Though the South was losing proportionally more of its black population during this time period, Gregory demonstrates the importance of viewing white and black migration as a Diaspora. As is widely known among those who study migration, one significant difference between black and white migrants was the tendency of whites to return to the South. Gregory points out that there were also small numbers of Latinos leaving the South beginning in the 1940s. |
. . . |
There are about 612 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
