It is hilarious to look at the demographics of many of the wealthier suburbs and rural areas in Massachusetts.
They have turned segregation into an art form—while decrying racism.
On some other forums (where real racists hang out) I always tell them to forget everything they have ever learned about Massachusetts—in many towns it is the Whitopia they are seeking.
Blacks only moved north in large numbers after about 1905. Initially to places like Chicago and Detroit.
The real migration wave north came in the Great Depression, when FDR’s administration refused to offer farm subsidies to sharecropper farms. The desperate blacks fled to northern cities for industrial and domestic employment.
By 1960, Detroit was about 29% black.
In 1938, welfare as we know it was barred to the state by the New York State constitution, I believe.
By the mid-1960s, New York was into welfare big time, after nudging by the federal government. New York State’s generous welfare payments were a magnet for poor southern blacks. A court case around 1968 ruled that the state could not pay out-of-state migrants (i.e. incoming southern blacks) less.
Other generous northern states also got a share of migrating southern blacks.