Reproduced with permission from Ebony/Johnson Publishing Company.

Ebony, September 1973

The return migration includes many college graduates and professionals seeking career opportunities. Unlike the previous migration from south to north, the net migration rates for those with college degrees or with at least some college were higher than for those with lower education levels. Between 1995 and 2000 Georgia, Texas, and Maryland had a particularly large influx of college-educated African Americans. New York was the top brain-drain state, losing more than eighteen thousand African-American college graduates in that five-year period. Barbara Merriday was one such migrant: after teaching in New York City, she returned to Atlanta to work as an associate engineer at the Atlanta Western Electric Company in the early 1970s.