RE:Right after WWII all the Southern States gave their welfare recipients bus tickets North.
this is rather simple and basicly untrue. Certainly, many GI's, during basic training, and on their way to europe and the pacific, passed through areas they had never seen, and learned more about other states.
and in the post war prosperity, automotive plants (in MI) and industries in Chicago, saw hugh influxes of people from Appalachia. (both white and black)
but for blacks in particular, the north seemed very appealing. in WWII when many poor rural blacks met northern blacks for the first time, and discoved that a crumby school in a NYC (or Boston) ghetto, provided better education than a white school in Alabama-- and it was a very quick and smart decision to move north! (check US Army IQ test results from WWII--On average, Norther Blacks out scored souther whites by a wide margin) racism in the north was different than in the south, but there were absolutely more opportunites. and in some cases, people intentionally applied for welfare, simple to get a free bus ticket north-- knowing they could get jobs!
In the past 20 years, many of those job have moved back to the south. (especially automotive jobs). things have also changed in the south.
Internal migration was fueled as much by the mass movement of young impressionable men, who returned "home" and decided places they has seen along the way were more appealing-- as it was by "shipping" welfare recipients north.
and to some degee, it happened other places too, Oz, GB, come to mind-- both had a lot of internal migration (as well as influxes of immigrants) post WWII-- and most was to cities!
