PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- After a century of representing a negligible percentage of Rhode Island's population, minority communities have surged in the last three decades, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- After a century of representing a negligible percentage of Rhode Island's population, minority communities have surged in the last three decades, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures.
Today, minorities make up a quarter of all Rhode Islanders.
Part of that has been due to rapid growth among minority communities and part because the white population has been declining since the 1970s, a period marked most notably by the Navy dramatically reducing its presence in Rhode Island.
In 1970, Rhode Island's white population peaked at 946,725, according to the Census. By 2010, it had dropped to 856,869, a loss of nearly 10 percent.
During the same period, minority populations skyrocketed, including:
Blacks: 25,338 to 60,189.
Hispanics: 7,596 to 130,655.