Alabama.

Arkansas

TABLE 1.-Nonwhite population for 11 Southern States, 1950-60

Source: U.8. Department of Commerce, "U.S. Census of Population 1960," general social and economic characteristics. U.S. Department of Commerce, "Current Population Report," population estimates, series P-25, No. 247, Apr. 2, 1962.

II. STRUCTURAL REORGANIZATION OF THE SOUTH

Economic progress is best evidenced by upward changes in the real per capita income of individuals (and, to a lesser extent, in the income of families). Income determines the spending and saving power of people, while at the same time it provides a measure of the earning capacity of the whole economy and an indicator of individual contributions to the production of goods and services.

On the other hand, structural changes and economic reorganization are best shown by change in industry sources of employment and income, shifts in occupational distribution of employed persos, growth in "value-added" by manufacturing, and characteristics of population change.

The South loses its people

Beyond the size of the population (see table 1) two aspects of population change are of interest here: The patterns of migration between the South and the non-South; and the patterns of migration between rural farm areas and the city, both within and outside the South.

In the 1950's, the South's population grew 14 percent. But table 2 shows that

Most of this gain, however, resulted from natural increase, i.e., an excess of births over deaths.

Only in Florida and Virginia was there a migration gain.

All other Southern States had more people moving out than moving in. Arkansas and Mississippi exported so many people that the former actually declined in population in the 1950's and the latter was stationary. Negroes were leaving the area in larger numbers than whites.

Another depressing fact: The South's export of people included a high proportion of its youth and its well educated.

For Negroes this is shown by such facts as

In 1950, 55 percent of Negroes with 4 or more years of college were in the South; in 1960, only 48 percent.

In 1950, 67 percent of Negro professional and technical workers were in the South; in 1960, only 48 percent.

During the decade 1940-50, more than 1.5 million Negroes left the South, and another 1.5 million left during the decade 1950-60. These movements involved 16 percent and 14 percent of the Negroes in the region in each of the two periods, respectively. In 1940, 77 percent of all Negroes in the United States resided in the South compared with 51 percent today.

The leading exporters of people were Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and South Carolina.

Patterns of migration by Negroes among Southern States have varied. Florida, for example, is the only State which had an excess of immigration by Negroes over outmigration in both decades since 1940; a 3 percent net inmigration between 1940 and 1950 and 17 percent between 1950 and 1960 (see table 2) Georgia and Louisiana are the only States in which outmigration by Negroes

slowed itself after 1950 and began to show a downward trend. In each of the other States included in table 2, the upward trend in Negro outmigration continued throughout the 1940-60 period. Mississippi lost the largest number of Negroes, 326,000, or 30 percent, between 1940 and 1950, and 323,000, or 32 percent, between 1950 and 1960.

The movement of Negroes out of the South is both helpful and harmful. By moving out of the South in pursuit of jobs created by national economic expansion, Negroes, as well as whites, find new job opportunities. Simultaneously, the South is being relieved of a sizable portion of the population which over the years has depended on low-income agriculture for a livelihood.

On the other hand, losses in population drain away much of the best developed and trained manpower, and these losses are from the most productive age group, which has received the benefit of substantial investment by the South in education and training. The loss of these persons from the region is a drain on the economy's human capital.

TABLE 2.-Population change and total net migration 1950-60 and net migration of nonwhites 1940-60 for 11 Southern States

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, "Current Population Reports," series P-25, No. 247, Apr. 2, 1962

Negroes move to the central cities

Another population shift is the movement of people to cities and urban areas, within and outside the South.

By 1960, three-fourths of the Negroes of Florida were urban dwellers (see table 3). The proportion in Kentucky and Tennessee was about as high, and in Louisiana three out of five Negroes were urban. By 1960, in only four StatesArkansas, Mississippi, North and South Carolina-did the majority of Negroes live where once they overwhelmingly had: on the land, or close to it.

TABLE 3.—Distribution of population between urban and rural for 11 States by color 1950-60

Alabama.
Arkansas.

Florida.

Georgia..

Kentucky.
Louisiana.
Mississippi.
North Carolina.
South Carolina.
Tennessee.
Virginia

1950-60

Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census of the Population, 1960, "General Social and Economic Characteristics," and 1950 U.S. Census of Population, "U.S. Summary, Detailed Characteristics."

The movement of people to the cities and metropolitan areas of the South symbolizes a basic change in the economic structure of the region, sealing an end to the region's traditional economy.

Negroes have also concentrated in the central cities rather than the suburbs. Charles Silberman has suggested that this ranks as one of the great population movements in modern history. In the last decade, the 12 largest standard metropolitan statistical areas-New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, San Francisco-Oakland, Boston, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Washington, Cleveland, and Baltimore-lost over 2 million white residents and gained nearly 2 million Negro residents, while the central cities of all standard metropolitan statistical areas in the Nation had an increase of 3.5 million in the Negro population.

However, in the influx of Negroes to the large cities of the North and West should not obscure the fact that Negroes have been moving into southern cities as well.

Between 1950 and 1960, the number of whites in the central cities of the South increased only 26 percent; the number of Negroes in the central city increased 37 percent. Whereas just a few years ago the large majority of Negroes lived on farms, today about 72 percent live in urban areas and about one-half live in the central cities of those urban areas. Table 4 shows population data for selected southern cities.

These patterns underscore the fact that Negroes are becoming more urbanized than whites, in the South as well as in the North. The trends are not as great in the South as in the North, but it is clear that Negroes and whites have been moving in opposite directions; that is, Negroes toward the central city and whites toward the suburbs.

Population redistribution within the South and between regions reflects the momentum of economic change and opportunity. The greatest single factor underlying population migration is economic, or employment, opportunity. The denial of opportunity to Negroes within the South and the attraction of such opportunity elsewhere has been the major motivation.

TABLE 4.-Population of selected urbanized areas by color, 1950-60

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1950 U.S. Census of Population, "U.S. Summary, Detailed Characteristics," table 53. U.S. Census of Population 1960, "General Social and Economic Characteristics, by State," table 72.

See his article, "The City and the Negro," in Fortune, March 1962.

Employment and sources of income

The principal factor determining the distribution of population over broad regions is economic opportunity and the principal dimension of economie opportunity is employment opportunity.

While farming continues to occupy a big place in the southern economic life, its relative role over the past 20 years has decreased. Farm employment declined by about 45 percent in the South between 1940 and 1960. During the same period manufacturing employment increased 23 percent, and as a source of income by 27 percent.

These changes have not only meant more factory jobs in the South. They have also involved diversification in employment. For example, the textile industry, once the backbone of manufacturing in the South and responsible for 25 percent of all manufacturing employment, is now the source of only 18 percent. Chemicals, transportation equipment, electrical machinery, and fabricated metals have grown as sources of factory employment, and other nonagriculture industries are increasingly providing more and better jobs for southern workers. Unquestionably, the South has reduced its poverty. Since 1940, the region has made progress toward achieving a balance between its share of the Nation's income and its share of the Nation's population. The South had one-fifth of the population in 1930 but received only one-tenth of the income; in 1961, although its proportion of the population had remained at about 20 percent, its share of personal income had advanced from 10 to 15 percent. (See table 5.)

The figures in table 6 show per capita personal income. Clearly, the progression in the South since 1940 has been greater than for the Nation as a whole. Perhaps the most illuminating figures are those on the bottom line: in 1940, southern personal income was only 58 percent of the national average; by 1962, it had reached 72 percent.

TABLE 5.-Income and population of the South as a percent of the United States, 1930-61

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, "Economic Characteristics of the South," January 1959; Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, "Statistics on the Growing South," November 1962.

These indexes, as shown in tables 5 and 6, indicate the economic progress of the South. A different impression is obtained, however, if dollars and cents, rather than percentages, are used.

In 1940 per capita personal income amounted to $595 in the United States as a whole, only $252 more than that of the South. By 1950 the national figure had grown to $1,494, but the South's per capital income was only $1,011, or $482 lower. By 1961, when the national figure had reached $2,263, the South had a per capita income of $1,652, or $611 lower.

In other words, the South has had large growth in personal income and has made impressive gains in the percentage relationship of its income to that of the rest of the Nation. At the same time, there has been an increase in the dollar gap, a gap that is more than twice greater than two decades ago.

The South is, nevertheless, now experiencing substantial improvements in its well-being. The economic lag which kept the region at the rear of American industrialization is being eroded. But Earl Rauber and Harry Brandt, both of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, placed the "new South" in its best perspective. Rauber put it this way: "for better or worse the inexorable march of economic history has abolished the South as an economic entity." Brandt said, "with the

old rural-agriculture economy gone, the Mississippi Delta farmer has less in common with the Atlanta factory worker or sales representative than the latter has with his counterparts in the rest of the country."

The region can no longer be characterized by a relatively homogeneous set of basic economic characteristics and pursuits different from those of the rest of the United States. It may be assumed, therefore, that southern economic growth and organization will be constantly linked to patterns of change in the total economy. Therefore, whatever forces shape the economy as a whole will tend to shape the future of the South, particularly if the region will emancipate itself from traditional race relations, a formidable barrier to its economic progress.

TABLE 6.-Per capita personal income for 11 Southern States, 1940-62

Source: 1940-50, U.S. Department of Commerce, "Personal Income by States, Since 1929"; 1961, "Survey of Current Business," August 1962; 1962, "Survey of Current Business," April, 1963.

Income: Negroes running fast to stand still

Income analysis suggests that Negroes are on a treadmill and time is in reality "running out" on them, as a group, in their pursuant of parity with whites. The group has to run exceptionally fast in order to stand still. And Negroes in the South have more difficulty is sustaining their relative and absolute positions than those in other sections of the country.

Undoubtedly the position of Negroes as income recipients and consumers has improved. Three times more Negroes were employed in 1960 than in 1940 in income producing, nonagricultue jobs; thus there are more Negroes with money. Change has occurred in the distribution of income among Negroes, and the huge migration of the Negro population from rural to urban areas and to the central cities has resulted in a large concentration of Negro purchasing power in these

areas.

For example, table 7 sets forth estimates of participation in retail sales by Negroes in 10 cities, ranging from $26 million, or 21 percent of the total, in Durham to $512 million, or 15 percent, in Houston. In none of these cities did Negroes represent this much sales volume 20 years ago. This is not only suggestive of the impact of aggregate and concentrated purchasing power in the Negro market, but it is also indicative of the kind of economic potential to which southern race relations must adjust.