On the Southern Diaspora

This is such a great book—really, it was transformative for me. James Gregory’s argument here is that, in addition to the Great Migration of black southerners to the North, there was also a Great Migration of white southerners. Both Great Migrations need to be looked at together, with an approach that Gregory calls “stereoscopic.” By this, Gregory refers to the visual illusions where, by looking at two images side-by-side, a third dimension appears, showing an image that can’t be seen by looking at either image alone. The Southern Diaspora is about that third dimension.

To Gregory, the migration of southerners to the North fundamentally reshaped American society. So many of the features that we consider characteristically American in the 21st century were a result of the Great Migration(s). For instance, the spread of evangelical Protestantism (both black and white); the development of blues, jazz, and country music; the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement; the development of modern conservatism; and the electoral politics of today were all shaped by southerners moving northward, bringing their culture along with them while modifying it to new circumstances. The preface of the book is particularly illuminating on this front, where Gregory looks at the conclusion of the 2004 election, which rested on two regions of Ohio: the first, the southwest of the state—where my mother’s family is from—was conservative, white, and largely evangelical; the second, the city of Cleveland, was largely black and liberal. Both regions of the state were fundamentally shaped by this movement of peoples to the North.

I found much of my own family history in here. My mother’s ancestral heritage is a mixture of Midwestern Germans who settled around Cincinnati after fleeing repression during the revolutions of 1848 and white southerners who arrived in the Chesapeake and North Carolina during the colonial period before making their way to first Tennessee, then Kentucky, and eventually southwestern Ohio. From there, our family has since spread further north, especially through Indiana and Illinois, although some have moved to Florida and I am currently writing this from my office in Massachusetts.

Gregory’s analysis here is sound and resonates well with my understanding of American history while pushing for a paradigmatic shift in my thinking about the second half of the twentieth century. Highest recommendation