Black Southerners

Black Southerners are African Americans living in the Southern United States, the United States region with the largest black population.

Despite a total of 6 million Black people migrating from the South to cities in the North and West from 1916 to 1970, the majority of the Black population remains concentrated in the Southern states. In addition, since the 1970s, numerous Black Americans have migrated to the South from other U.S. regions in a reverse New Great Migration, but they tend to be educated and to settle in urban areas. Black Southerners strongly contributed to the cultural blend of Christianity, foods, art, music (see spiritual, blues, jazz and rock and roll) that characterize Southern culture today.

African slaves were sent to the South during the slave trade. Slavery in the United States was primarily located in the American South. By 1850, about 3.2 million African slaves labored in the United States, 1.8 million of whom worked in the cotton fields. Black slaves in the South faced arbitrary power abuses from white people. Before the Civil War, more than 4 million black slaves worked in the South. Virginia had the largest slave population, followed by Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina. There are large black communities in urban cities in the South such as Houston, Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas and Atlanta.

Black Southerners are more likely to identify as a Southerner and claim Southern identity than their counterpart White Southerners.