US

‘Tired Of The Gunshots’: Black Americans Are Fleeing Crime-Ridden Blue Cities

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Black residents are leaving many crime-ridden U.S. cities in the North in favor of suburban areas in the South, according to The Wall Street Journal.

U.S. Census Bureau estimates released on Thursday revealed that black residents are leaving cities in the North and West that have a historically high black population, including Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Oakland, according to the WSJ. The residents are reportedly fleeing to suburban and “high-growth” areas to escape rising crime and find better neighborhoods.

“I was tired of the gunshots, the sirens,” Mary Hall-Rayford, a retired teacher who moved from Detroit to neighboring Eastpointe, Michigan, in 2012, told the WSJ.

Khary Minor, who grew up in South Philadelphia, told the WSJ that nearly 5% of his barbershop customers left the city since the pandemic began and crime increased. He’s been looking for a place to live in suburban Darby, Pennsylvania.

“Better school district, nicer neighborhood, there’s not people out on every corner,” Minor told the WSJ.

The outflows represent a reversal of the so-called “Great Migration” that started in the early 20th century, when millions of black Americans left the South to pursue “economic opportunities” and “flee racial violence,” the WSJ reported. Young, college-educated black people are leading the shift, William Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer, told the WSJ. (RELATED: Americans Fleeing Major Cities, Census Data Shows)

The percentage of black people living in metropolitan-area suburbs rose to 44% by 2020, up from 33% two decades earlier, the WSJ reported.