 The largest minority group in Virginia is African American, at 19.7 % as of 2015. Most African American Virginians have been descendants of enslaved Africans who worked on tobacco, cotton, and hemp plantations. These men, women and children were brought from West and West-Central Africa, primarily from Angola and the Bight of Biafra. The Igbo ethnic group of what is now southern Nigeria were the single largest African group among slaves in Virginia. Though the black population was reduced by the Great Migration, since 1965 there has been a reverse migration of blacks returning south. According to the Pew Research Center, the state has the highest concentration of black and white interracial marriages.
