Racial Diversity and Racial Policy Preferences: The Great Migration and Civil Rights

185 Pages Posted: 3 Sep 2019 Last revised: 26 Feb 2022

See all articles by Álvaro Calderón

Álvaro Calderón

United Nations - Foreign Direct Investment Unit

Vasiliki Fouka

Stanford University

Marco Tabellini

Harvard Business School

Date Written: December 1, 2021

Abstract

Between 1940 and 1970, more than 4 million African Americans moved from the South to the North of the United States, during the Second Great Migration. This same period witnessed the struggle and eventual success of the civil rights movement in ending institutionalized racial discrimination. This paper shows that the Great Migration and support for civil rights are causally linked. Predicting Black inflows with a shift-share instrument, we find that the Great Migration raised support for the Democratic Party, increased Congress members' propensity to promote civil rights legislation, and encouraged pro-civil rights activism outside the U.S. South. We provide different pieces of evidence that support for civil rights was not confined to the Black electorate, but was also shared by segments of the white population.

Keywords: Race, diversity, civil rights, Great Migration

JEL Classification: D72, J15, N92

Suggested Citation

Calderón, Álvaro and Fouka, Vasiliki and Tabellini, Marco, Racial Diversity and Racial Policy Preferences: The Great Migration and Civil Rights (December 1, 2021). Harvard Business School BGIE Unit Working Paper No. 20-017, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3447469 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3447469

Álvaro Calderón

United Nations - Foreign Direct Investment Unit ( email )

Chile

Vasiliki Fouka

Stanford University ( email )

Stanford, CA 94305
United States

Marco Tabellini (Contact Author)

Harvard Business School ( email )

Soldiers Field Road
Morgan 270C
Boston, MA 02163
United States

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