Full Citation
Title: Racial Diversity and Racial Policy Preferences: The Great Migration and Civil Rights
Citation Type: Working Paper
Publication Year: 2019
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Abstract: Between 1940 and 1970, during the second Great Migration, more than 4 million African Americans moved from the South to the North of the United States. In this period, blacks were often excluded from the political process in the South, but were eligible to vote in the North. We study how, by changing the composition and the preferences of the northern electorate, the Great Migration affected both voters’ demand for racial equality and legislators’ support for civil rights legislation. We predict black inflows by interacting historical settlements of southern born blacks across northern counties with the differential rate of black emigration from different southern states after 1940. We find that black in-migration increased the Democratic vote share and encouraged grassroots activism, not only among black but also, and crucially, among white voters. In turn, Congress members representing areas more exposed to black inflows became increasingly supportive of civil rights. They were not only more likely to vote in favor of pro-civil rights bills, but also more willing to take direct actions, such as signing discharge petitions, to promote racial equality. Investigating the mechanisms, we document that both “between” and “within” party changes contributed to the shift in the position of northern legislators on civil rights. Taken together, our findings suggest that the Great Migration played an important role in the development and success of the civil rights movement.
Url: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3447469
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Authors: Calderon, Alvaro; Fouka, Vasiliki; Tabellini, Marco
Series Title: Harvard Business School BGIE Unit Working Paper
Publication Number: 20-017
Institution: Harvard Business School
Pages: 1-185
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Data Collections: IPUMS USA - Ancestry Full Count Data
Topics: Migration and Immigration, Other
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