Reproduced with permission from Ebony/Johnson Publishing Company.

Ebony, September 1998

The first six decades of the twentieth century have been characterized by one of the most significant demographic shifts in the history of the United States: the movement of millions of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. By 1970, however, this shift began to reverse. During the 1970s, the South added two million African Americans to its population, more than tripling the figure for the previous decade. The 1980s and 1990s would bring an even more substantial return migration and population retention. Shown here, Nancy and Olin Foster move into their new home in the South.