Following the Italians, Jews, French Canadians and other once-urbanized ethnic groups, the region's black population headed for the suburbs during the 1990s, reversing a centurylong trend that had made African Americans an ethnic bedrock of Hartford.
Population figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau show a region's minority population that is increasingly suburban as well as urban, with Asians and Hispanics, as well as black residents, rolling up significant population gains in Hartford County's suburbs.
The shift to the suburbs was most striking with black residents, as Hartford's African American population dropped for the first time since before World War I, a development that historians called a significant milestone, as well as a worrisome fact for Hartford.
``The general theme song here is, the ones who can leave Hartford do leave Hartford, no matter what your race, creed or color is,'' said Andrew Walsh, an urban historian at Trinity College who specializes in Hartford history. ``The barriers [to moving to the suburbs] that were very, very, very strong have been lowered. Americans are Americans. They want their plot, their house, their garage -- black, brown, white and red.''
Just a decade ago, fewer than one in three black residents in Hartford County lived in the suburbs of Hartford County. In 2000, nearly half -- 46 percent, or about 46,000 people -- lived in the suburbs, according to 2000 Census figures analyzed by The Courant. The balance of the county's roughly 100,000 black residents lived in Hartford or New Britain.
For many people, the figures are the official ratification of something they had seen long ago -- the draining of Hartford's middle class among all races and ethnic groups.
``As a person who lives in Hartford, the pool of middle-class African Americans has dwindled,'' said Rudolph Arnold, a lawyer who was the city's deputy mayor from 1981 to 1983. ``So you have the very poor people remaining. ... The vast majority of the people that I know and socialize with, they don't live in the city, they all live in the suburbs.''
Arnold said he noticed that when he was living in Hartford's Blue Hills neighborhood, some of his African American friends visiting from the suburbs would get nervous about sunset and start to head home.
``More and more, perceptions are mirroring economic status rather than race,'' Arnold said. ``Some of my friends who are middle class or upper class have the same perceptions of the city that white people do. It's not a racial thing.''
Scholars and others pointed to a number of reasons for the shift of black residents to the suburbs -- a shift that is not evenly distributed across the region but focused mostly on several towns next to Hartford. Those reasons include an easing of racism, the growing economic strength of black residents and other minority groups, and the ongoing effect of decades-old civil rights laws.
Other factors included a weak economy that made it easier for minorities to acquire or rent homes in the suburbs, and a declining Hartford public school system that encouraged people to leave the city for their children's sake.
One of the places with the most rapidly growing minority population is East Hartford, where black, Hispanic and other minority residents now make up about 40 percent of the town's population. Over the past five years, businesses that cater to the town's growing minority population have proliferated, especially on Burnside Avenue. There are new hair salons and grocery stores, restaurants and boutiques -- all of which cater to black and Hispanic residents.
``When we moved here, there weren't any minorities on our block,'' said Andrea Powell, whose family owns A's Hot & Spicy, a Jamaican restaurant on Burnside Avenue. ``Then, before you knew it, we were joined by others and others. Some people died and they sold their house to a black family.''
The picture was different in Hartford.
Between 1990 and 2000, Hartford's African American population dropped by about 8,000 -- the first decade the city has seen a decline in its black population since before 1910.
Hartford's black population stayed fairly small until the 1950s, when an influx of people from the Caribbean and from the South seeking jobs in Hartford's many factories and on the state's farms doubled the black population in one decade to about 25,000 people. The city's black population nearly doubled again in the 1960s, and continued to grow through the 1970s and 1980s, cresting at about 54,000 people in 1990.
Through much of the late 20th century, the region's black population was concentrated in the city. As recently as 1970, more than 80 percent of black residents in Hartford County lived in Hartford.
In the 1990s, that picture changed dramatically.
Suddenly, the black population was falling in Hartford, while it surged in suburbs such as East Hartford, West Hartford, Manchester and Windsor. Bloomfield, which has had a large black population for decades, saw its black population continue to grow.
In West Hartford, the number of black residents more than doubled, from about 1,300 in 1990 to more than 3,000 in 2000. The number of black residents in Manchester also more than doubled, to about 4,600 people. Those numbers do not include the roughly 2 percent of Connecticut residents who checked two or more racial categories on their 2000 Census form.
Although black residents had the most striking population shift in Hartford County, they are not the only minority group to record large population gains in the suburbs, according to an analysis of 2000 Census numbers by The Courant.
Among Asians, about three in four lived in the suburbs in 1990. Now, about four of every five Asians live in Hartford's suburbs.
A smaller share of Hispanics, about one in three, live in the suburbs. That is still an increase over the 21 percent who lived in the suburbs in 1990.
Within Connecticut, the trend of black residents moving out of the city appears to be most notable in Hartford. New Haven's black population dropped during the 1990s, but only by about 1,000 people.
For the new suburbanites, and the towns they are joining, the transition has not always been smooth.
In East Hartford, the total minority population in the public schools was 61 percent for the 1999-2000 school year, compared with 46 percent only five years earlier.
East Hartford Mayor Timothy D. Larson prefers to avoid using the word ``diversity'' to describe the local public schools' enrollment. Instead, he refers to the situation as ``a dose of reality.''
``We've picked up 1,600 new kids from Hartford'' during the past five years, Larson said Tuesday.
Despite the doubling of black residents in town during the past decade, not a single member of the town council is black.
``When it comes to boards and commissions in East Hartford, there is under-representation,'' said Robert J. Fortier, the Republican leader on the town council and a recruiter for candidates for elected positions. ``One black gentleman told me that blacks don't feel part of the community. You have to understand that most Caucasians don't get involved, either.''
When Hartford native Richard Blade, who is black, moved to Manchester with his family six years ago, he said his reasons included a stable tax base, a school system that seemed ``really good,'' and the chance to live in a place ``with village charm.''
Blade didn't feel welcomed, though.
``I wasn't expecting the cold shoulder I got,'' he said. ``The subtle racism. ... They looked at you, but they didn't really see you.''
Blade, 55, said he would pick up his 8-year-old daughter from school and other parents would pass him by without a warm greeting or smile.
``No one accepted me until I went to the PTA,'' he said. ``There it took them four months before they finally warmed up to me.''
Courant Staff Writers Ann-Marie Adams, Christopher Keating, Olivia Gentile, Constance Neyer and Janice D'Arcy contributed to this story.