This development reverses the trend of the so-called Great Migration, a period between WWI and the 1970s when a large number of the black population migrated northward.
Columnist Dan Bilefsky reports, "The economic downturn has propelled a striking demographic shift: black New Yorkers, including many who are young and college educated, are heading south."
"The movement is not limited to New York. The percentage of blacks leaving big cities in the East and in the Midwest and heading to the South is now at the highest levels in decades," he adds.
