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Where Black Americans live today has been deeply influenced by where they lived over a century ago. Slavery, segregation, migration, and opportunity have marked the map of the United States—not just in books about the past, but in population patterns that persist.
A Century of Change
In 1910, the distribution of Black Americans was strikingly concentrated in the South. States like Mississippi, South Carolina, and Louisiana had Black populations that made up more than half of the total state population. This was a direct inheritance of slavery and the plantation economy that had ruled the area for centuries.
To provide us with a means of seeing the broader historical shifts, the second set of maps compares where African Americans resided in 1910 to where they lived in 2010.
Note the deep penetration of the Black population into northern and western states over time—a trend driven in large part by the Great Migration, one of the most significant internal migrations in U.S. history.
The Great Migration and Its Aftereffects
Millions of African Americans migrated from the rural South to cities in the North, Midwest, and West between approximately 1916 and the 1970s. In addition to looking for work in prosperous industrial cities, they also hoped to get away from the deeply ingrained racism of Jim Crow laws. Cities all throughout the nation were altered by this movement. Nearly 58% of African Americans resided in urban areas by 2000. With over 2 million Black residents, or roughly 28% of the city’s total population, New York City was at the top of the pack. Chicago followed, with nearly 1.6 million African Americans in its metropolitan area, accounting for 18% of the region’s population.
This demographic shift is evident in county-level maps. By 2016, counties with sizable African American populations weren’t just in the Deep South—they dotted the entire eastern half of the country.
A Reverse Migration: The “New Great Migration”
History tends to repeat itself. Known as the New Great Migration, a large number of African Americans have been returning to the South since the 1990s. This return is frequently propelled by cultural roots, affordable housing, familial ties, and expanding economic opportunities in southern cities, in contrast to the previous movement that was motivated by economic survival. African American populations in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City—once significant centers of Black migration—are currently declining. On the other hand, major increases are occurring in cities such as Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte, and Houston. This change is contributing to the transformation of the South’s urban environment. Many southern cities now have some of the highest percentages of Black residents in the nation.
America’s Blackest Cities The 2010 Census highlights this transformation. While cities like Detroit and Baltimore still had large Black majorities, the fastest-growing Black urban populations were increasingly in the South:
Detroit, MI – 82%
Jackson, MS – 79.4%
Miami Gardens, FL – 76.3%
Baltimore, MD – 63%
Birmingham, AL – 62.5%
Memphis, TN – 61%
New Orleans, LA – 60%
Atlanta, GA – 54%
These cities are thriving centers of Black business, music, faith, political activism, and cultural innovation, and they are more than just places with a large population. Additionally, many of them are becoming focal points for the upcoming chapter in African American history as migration patterns change.
The Geography of Majority-Black Communities
Some counties stand out even more. Those are counties in which African Americans comprise a majority—over 50%—of the population.
Majority-Black counties are mostly found in the South, particularly in the area commonly referred to as the Black Belt, which stretches from eastern Texas through the Deep South to portions of Virginia and North Carolina, as this map illustrates.
For an even sharper look, here’s a map showing counties where African Americans make up at least two-thirds of the population: These counties, while fewer in number, are deeply significant in American history and politics. They are the cultural heartlands of Black America and remain strongholds of African American heritage, influence, and identity.
