Thursday, March 10, 2011
Phillips Welcome Home! Those Gone North Are Returning South
Posted by Betsy Phillips on Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 6:08 AM
At my grandma's 90th birthday party last Saturday (let that sink in, gentle readers. I could be at this for another 50 years at least), my dad was telling me how Chicago's population has shrunk because everyone's moving south. Lo and behold, today Ta-Nehisi Coates over at The Atlantic is talking about the same thing.
There are fewer people living in Chicago today than there were in 1920, in part because, according to the Wall Street Journal, "the recent recession accelerated a migration both to the metropolitan area's farthest suburbs and to the Southern U.S." as black people, especially, return to the places their families came from during the Great Migration.
"I can totally feel the lure to go back home," Coates writes. "There's something singularly beautiful about the South, and you'll miss the allure if all you can fulminate about is the backwardness of Haley Barbour. Besides, if these figures continue apace, the days of the Haley Barbours will be numbered."
Indeed.
Some of the best, most fun things about America happened when Southerners like McKinley Morganfield went north and plugged their guitars in. Who knows what will result from folks moving south again?
Maybe we'll even get some proper pizza down here.
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