Black people live longest in places where they can prosper

As a scholar focused on improving the economic well-being of African Americans, Andre Perry often wearied of reports about racial disparities that offered no solutions. Simply comparing the deficits of people who had been discriminated against with the assets of people who benefited from the discrimination got us nothing except an ever-widening economic gap.

More intriguing to Perry was how some Black people managed to make economic progress no matter what — either by organizing for policy changes or increasing individual effort.

“If we can find the places where Black people are doing well, then we can learn from them and maybe replicate some of those conditions in places where Black people aren’t doing as well,” said Perry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a D.C.-based public-policy think tank.

Perry and Brookings colleague Jonathan Rothwell, working in partnership with the NAACP, have succeeded in finding such places by the hundreds. Most are characterized by the relatively long life spans of their residents. Among the 20 counties with the highest life expectancy for Black people, three are in Virginia: Loudoun (82.7 years), Fairfax (82.2) and Prince William (81.8). One is in Maryland: Montgomery County (81.3 years.)

They also correlate with higher-income Black households.

Areas where Black people are living long and well are widely scattered, in urban and rural areas, in red and blue states, North and South. In both Manassas Park, Va., and Weld County in Colorado, the mean life expectancy for Black residents is 96 years — the highest in the nation.

Perry and his team have created a Black Progress Index with an interactive dashboard that allows users to see predictors of longevity where they reside.

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Written by: Courtland Milloy