Still overjoyed from receiving the @socscihist Founders Prize, I’d like to share more about why this prize proves that we desperately need diverse voices in the economics profession. To be blunt— if it wasn’t for me being black, this paper would *never* have happened. A thread.
The idea for the segregation measure comes from my paternal grandmother, who passed away in 2011. She could vividly recall every household on her street from the 1930 Cenusus. She literally walked me down memory lane of her young adulthood in Coffeeville, MS. This was in 2010.
In that process I learned that she lived on a street with white households. My grandmother grew up as a sharecropper, and the narrative we typically hold is one of complete segregation, particularly in rural areas in the cotton south. Her life told me that wasn’t universally true
I had the idea to use neighbors to estimate segregation for all areas, because we don’t have good measures for historical populations and especially for rural areas. It was @jmparman who told (and showed) me that that this was actually something that could be done with data
We began working on the project together and we were very shocked at what we found. Rural segregation was quite similar to urban segregation. Even more, segregation was not related to racial proportions. And segregation changed over time in rural areas. It’s dynamic everywhere.
John was (and is) a terrific coauthor. He understood my original insight, formalized it, and extended and tested it in ways I could not have imagined. We have since developed several additional measures based on neighbors and census enumeration protocols.
Originally, we met with a lot of Econ resistance to our work. We were told several times that rural areas did not matter, that the approach was “not novel” and even that it was insufficiently technical. This just wasn’t the way to think about or measure segregation, we were told.
I knew that a measure gleaned from lived black experience, as opposed to aracial theorizing, could be a significant advance. Basically, I knew my grandmother knew something about the world that was worthwhile. I didn’t (and still don’t) expect most white economists to get it.
Like with almost everything concerning race in this profession, I rolled my eyes and pressed forward. I was used to it by that point in my career. It no longer deters me. It was demographers and social science historians who were most supportive, and I’ll never forget that.
It took us more than 6 years to see the segregation measure paper published. There were many times I wanted to give up. I had tenure by that point, and I could move on. But I was personally invested in this paper more than anything else I’d ever done. cambridge.org/core/journals/…
I knew @drlisadcook was working on racial violence and innovation, and after John and I worked out the measure we collaborated with Lisa, a leading expert on Lynching, to see how/if segregation has explanatory power for lynchings. It turns out, it does. cambridge.org/core/journals/…
Happy Ending: This is the third award to come from my grandmother’s inspiration. I repeat—the THIRD international publication award to come from an idea from a black woman who was systematically denied schooling beyond the elementary level. Let that sink in, slowly, in 2019...
This is NOT about representation, but IS about how people from different experiences and backgrounds can make generative contributions to the body of scientific knowledge. It is about how experience informs how and what we think about the world, and put into action. It matters.
This is why having a diverse group of researchers improves research. It takes us in new and novel directions. This came from something tied intimately to the black experience. Anyone using the measure or reading these papers owes Annie Mae Logan (née Adams) a HUGE thank you.
