York, PA and the Great Migration
To begin, we started with York College, and its link to the Great Migration, and neighborhood deterioration. As we know, the 1920’s was a time of political unrest in terms of race throughout the country. With the 1920s came the Great Migration, leading to an influx of black families moving to York for better financial opportunities, resulting in a bubbling of racial tension that eventually boiled over. At this time, York Junior College was positioned on the corner of Duke Street and College Avenue. This places YCP at the heart of this ever building tension. Before things really came to a head, the college found a new plot of land, and relocated to where it is now. With this in mind, we began to question what role the Great Migration played in the college making its move. We used the project to research the relationship between the Great Migration, and neighborhood deterioration and the move York College made prior to the 1960s.
The Great Migration was driven by job availability in the York area. The median per capita income of black families was double that of Aiken, SC, where most of the families migrated from. The black population in York was low in the area pre-migration, but increased by 300% from 1920-1970 (2,000 to 6,500). A majority of the black population lived in the city while white families lived in suburban and rural areas. Overall, neighborhoods started to lose their value because of an increased black presence. From 1950-1960, York saw a decrease in white population (-12%) while black populations increased significantly (52%).
Given the prestigious nature of colleges, one can assume the college feared losing its reputable appearance because of the association it had with the increasingly diverse York city. During this time, the value of a neighborhood was influenced by the minority presence. The higher the minority presence, the more “dangerous” the neighborhood became. This affected homes, businesses, and schools in the area, meaning any establishment within this area would also be deemed dangerous. This possibly posed a multitude of issues for the college, with the biggest one being people being deterred from attending the college because of it being in a “dangerous” location. It is still unclear why the college moved, but taking these things into account, it seems as though this could be a strong contributing factor.