He isn’t the only reason more Black Americans are choosing to live overseas, but there can be little doubt that the presidency of Donald Trump – and the culture war he catapulted to prominence – are major factors in the recent reignition of the trend known as “Blaxit.”
This blended word – combining Black and exit – first gained traction in 2016, the year Trump was first elected as president. The hashtag Blaxit channeled a growing conversation about leaving the U.S. for destinations friendlier to Black visitors and expats.
Several national media outlets picked up on it. USA TODAY spotlighted the trend and the factors fueling it in 2020, with a piece called Black Americans leave USA to escape racism, build lives abroad.
By then a record number of African Americans had left the U.S. during Trump’s first term in office, with some openly naming the president as a factor in the movement.
The New York Times posted about the phenomenon in 2024 with an article titled Blaxit: Tired of Racism, Black Americans Try Life in Africa.
More recently, actress KJ Smith sparked the interest of Fox News with remarks to a reporter at the NAACP Image Awards in February. Fox quoted Smith saying, “With the political climate that’s going on in the United States of America, there are places we can go. There are countries that are receiving us back — citizenship back — with open arms.”
Well-known columnist Jenice Armstrong put her spin on it with a trip to Ghana four days after Trump defeated VP Kamala Harris last November.
In speaking with Black Americans who’d moved to Ghana, “Over and over they told me that racism was a key factor in their decision to leave America,” Armstrong wrote in the first of several articles on the Blaxit wave.
How big is the trend?
Few data sources exist to pinpoint how big the migration is or may become. But we do know that tens of thousands of Black Americans left the country during Trump’s first term.
The Power Broker ballparked the trend using the U.S. Department of Defense Federal Voting Assistance Program Overseas Citizen Population Analysis. This report is released every other year, with 2022 being the most recent version.
Roughly 120,000 Black American adults were living abroad in 2020, an increase of nearly 50,000 or 70% over 2014 (the closest data year prior to Trump’s entry into the 2016 race in 2015). See graph below.
The bulk of that increase happened between 2016 (when Trump was elected) and 2020 (the final year of Trump 1.0), when the Black adult overseas population grew by about 46,000.
In addition, the surge was unique to Black citizens. From 2016 to 2020, the Black adult overseas population grew by 62% versus only 7% for non-Black Americans.
How many will leave during Trump 2.0
We won’t have official data on the four-year span of Trump’s second term until 2029.
Yet we do know that more and more Black Americans are exploring a major move. Google Trends shows that the number of searches related to moving to Africa or the Caribbean (among top destinations for Black expats) doubled in the five months following the 2024 election (compared to the five months prior).
Blaxit influencers and overseas Black expat groups are growing too. The Yarbros travel lifestyle channel has grown its YouTube subscriber base to 164,000. Blaxit and Blaxit Global have more than 69,000 subscribers combined. Roshida Dowe is at 47,000 on the video platform as she teaches others to live their best life abroad.
We may get more insight later than this year when the Defense Department drops its Overseas Citizen report for 2024.
Figure 1: Change in Black U.S. Citizens Living Overseas 2014 to 2022
Notes
Data in the graph above and table below are estimates based on data in the U.S. Department of Defense, Federal Voting Assistance Program, Overseas Citizen Population Analysis, Technical Report. The most recent version is for 2022 and was published in 2023. This report analyzes the size and level of participation in the 2022 General Election of non-military, voting-age U.S. citizens living abroad.
Table 1 : Change in Black U.S. Citizens Living Overseas
| 2014-2020 | 2016-2020 | ||||||||
| 2014 | 2016 | 2018 | 2020 | 2022 | # Growth | % Growth | # Growth | % Growth | |
| Low End | 52,971 | 55,642 | 59,221 | 100,183 | 66,403 | 47,212 | 89% | 44,541 | 80% |
| Middle Est. | 70,160 | 73,698 | 78,439 | 119,741 | 87,951 | 49,581 | 71% | 46,043 | 62% |
| High End | 87,349 | 91,754 | 97,657 | 139,298 | 109,499 | 51,949 | 59% | 47,544 | 52% |
With comments or questions, gypsy@powerbrokermagazine.com.
