Why are Black residents leaving Chicago?
Reginald Hardwick/Illinois Newsroom
Nearly 7 million Black people left the south between 1915 and the 1970s during the Great Migration. Hundreds of thousands came north to Chicago, fleeing violence, overt discrimination and poverty in the south. This influx of people made Chicago the city that it is today—shaped by the contributions of a thriving Black community to the city’s art, music, culture and economy. Now, many Black Chicagoans are leaving again, in the other direction. Systemic racism in the city, violence, and gentrification are just some of the reasons many Black Chicagoans are going to neighboring states like Indiana, or south to Texas, Georgia and Arizona. To talk more about the out-migration of Chicago’s black residents, we were joined by the CEO of an resident association, a professor of Urban Planning, a Chicago bakery owner and former professor, and a former Chicago resident who left the city a few years ago.
This segment originally aired on December 2, 2021.
GUESTS:
Asiaha Butler
Asiaha Butler, President, Co-Founder and CEO of RAGE
Stacey Sutton
Associate Professor of Urban Planning at University of Illinois Chicago
Chamille Weddington
Bakery Owner of Schweet Bakery, Former Professor at Columbia College
Angela Wilbanks
Moved to San Antonio, TX in 2017
The culture that makes us so proud — art, cuisine, music, industry — is impossible to imagine without the contributions of Black Chicago. But the 2020 census revealed the Black population continues to decline in Chicago. Hear more on #BlackVoicesWTTWhttps://t.co/dyCTAU4vCn
— WTTW (Chicago PBS) (@wttw) October 9, 2021
Prepared for web by Owen Henderson
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