February Is Black History Month USA: "Whites' Accounts of the Origins of Sharecropping Never Mention the Never-Realised Idea of Giving the Ex-Slaves 40 Acres and a Mule for Each Family." Now It's the South of USA That Is Attracting Young Black Professionals and College Students

Orakwue, Stella, New African

"You can't have your cake and eat it, too." I've never understood that saying. It's peculiar. You've probably gone and bought your fancy cake, paid good money; or even baked it yourself: laborious, hard labour, no easy, instant mixes. The least you can do is jolly well enjoy it yourself. It's a silly saying that I'm probably too blind or stupid to comprehend. But perhaps the best cakes, the most glorious cakes, have to be cut up and dished out.

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You know what, that's exactly how I feel about marvellous information contained in marvellous books. Marvellous books are like fabulous cakes: crying to be sliced up and handed out.

The other week I read a newspaper article in which a demographer called William H. Frey, at the University of Michigan in the United States, revealed that since 1990 the southern states of America had added 807,442 black people to their populations. These newcomer African-Americans had migrated from other parts of America, particularly from northern cities, looking for better jobs and better living conditions in "the new South".

According to Dr Frey's research, northern cities like New York, Detroit, and Chicago were no longer on a 25-city list of the fastest growing metropolitan areas for African-Americans. It's the south that is now attracting young black …

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Publication information: Article title: February Is Black History Month USA: "Whites' Accounts of the Origins of Sharecropping Never Mention the Never-Realised Idea of Giving the Ex-Slaves 40 Acres and a Mule for Each Family." Now It's the South of USA That Is Attracting Young Black Professionals and College Students. Contributors: Orakwue, Stella - Author. Magazine title: New African. Issue: 448 Publication date: February 2006. Page number: 56+. © 2005 IC Publications Ltd. COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale Group.

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