How many blacks pass for whites? Historically, more than you think.

Using the full population of historical Censuses for 1880-1940, we document that over 19% of black males “passed” for white at some point during their lifetime, around 10% of whom later “reverse-passed” to being black; passing was accompanied by geographic relocation to communities with a higher percentage of whites and occurred the most in Northern states.

A new paper by Emily Nix and Nancy Qian.

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