The population of the 11 Southeastern states totals 42.1 million.

More than half (61 percent) of Southerners live in a metro area, an early sign of the shift of a rural South to a more urban South that will continue in the coming decades.

Census data show that more than 1.4 million Black people left the South, mostly re-settling in the urban cities in the North.

The Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upholds busing as a way to advance integration of public schools.

Maynard Jackson elected as first Black mayor of Atlanta.

Jimmy Carter of Georgia becomes President of the United States. He brings veterans of the Civil Rights Movement and a new biracial Democratic politics of the South to the White House.

The population of the 11 Southeastern states totals 57.5 million.