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Notes -
It was at least a form of ethnic displacement. I think the case for ‘cleansing’ is that some of the action that led to large scale population movement (like bussing) was top down state implemented rather than organically decided by communities, and this probably pushes it into ethnic cleansing, even if unintentional, by state and successive federal governments. Then again, can ethnic cleansing be unintentional?
Similarly, whether black people were subject to a policy of ethnic cleansing in the South isn’t completely clear. Obviously many left in the Great Migration (which ultimately spurred the above), but while both good job opportunities in Northern cities and racism and ill treatment in the South are cited as reasons they did so, I think the former was a bigger draw than the latter was a push.
(Similarly we might say that many whites left the inner cities not only or even primarily because of high crime rates, but because many actually wanted the bigger houses, gardens and so on of the suburbs. Suburbanization didn’t begin in 1965 after all. But there’s enough of a historical record of an immediate collapse between ‘65 and ‘75 that it’s clear something exceptional did happen.)
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