MPR’s John Biewen presents the first of two reports on how the Twin Cities are responding to black newcomers. Report includes commentary from residents, politicians, and academics.
Between 1940 and 1970, more than 5 million African Americans moved from the South to Northern industrial cities in what came to be known as the Great Black Migration. In recent decades, as jobs have dried up in northern cities, hundreds of thousands of blacks have moved back to the South, to cities like Atlanta and Houston. But many others have moved further north. The Twin Cities are now the number-one northern destination for migrating African Americans.