Afro-Caribbean Migrants' Knowledge of the South Before to Moving to Atlanta - Pt 1

When I asked Afro-Caribbeans in Atlanta what they knew about Atlanta and the South before they moved there, most of them told me that they knew very little or nothing about the region prior to their migration. Though they did recognize that there were differences between the South and the rest of the US, what the migrants did know about the region was generally basic information based on its past history—largely its history up to 1965.

When asked what they knew about the South before moving to Atlanta, they listed, for example, slavery, the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr., and the region’s history of violence and discrimination against all peoples of African ancestry. These responses were common among Afro-Caribbeans regardless of when they moved to Atlanta. Judith, a Jamaican-born migrant in her fifties who moved to Atlanta in the early 1980s, told me that before she moved, she knew very little about Atlanta except for what she learned from history books. She stated, “I was a history teacher in the Caribbean. I knew about the Civil War. But I knew very little about [how] southerners lived today. Most of what I knew was from the history books.” Arriving in Atlanta about twenty years later, Karen, a New York-born transplant of Kittian descent in her early thirties who moved to the southern city from Los Angeles in 2002, similarly told me that she had little prior knowledge about the region except for its past history of slavery and racism. She stated: “All I knew was slavery and racism to be honest…I really didn’t know much. I basically came down in faith.”

Interestingly, when I asked about their pre-migration knowledge of Atlanta, most of the Afro-Caribbeans that I interviewed started off their responses with this disclaimer of “I didn’t know much about Atlanta except for” before proceeding to tell me what they did know. Like Karen, Ashley, a transplant in her forties of Jamaican descent who moved to Atlanta from Boston in 2007, started saying she knew little about Atlanta and then proceeded to tell me the few things she did know about the city before moving there. She stated, “I didn’t know a whole lot about Atlanta before moving. I knew it was an up and coming city and there were lot of opportunities for black Americans.” This pattern in the migrants’ responses showed me that my respondents knew more about Atlanta than they realized or admitted (to me or themselves). I thought it was very unlikely that any migrant would move to a place without knowing a few things about their new home, unless the move was involuntary, such as in the case of a minor child moving with family, a refugee being resettled, or military personnel being assigned to a new station, and with further questioning my respondents proved to know significant details about Atlanta before moving there.