Holding Hands: African-Americans Reclaim the Rural South

The exodus of rural African-Americans from the South to northern cities had all but ceased by the 1970s. Since then, the process has reversed. Black Americans have been leaving an urban economy that failed them and returning South. The South has regained from the cities of the North the half-million black citizens it lost during the 1960s. For many, the destinations are rural communities that by all statistical measures are some of the least promising places in America—places the Department...