Blacks were originally brought to America to serve as slaves in southeastern states on large-scale plantations. During the [[Civil War]], all slaves were freed by [[Abraham Lincoln]] though the [[Emancipation Proclamation]], the [[Thirteenth Amendment]], and some state actions. During [[Reconstruction]] the Freedmen (freed slaves) gained citizenship and civil and political rights, including the right to marry, move about, and keep their wages.
The system of sharecropping instituted after the end of the war left most Freedmen poor, while the [[Jim Crow]] policies of racial [[segregation]] that were implemented after the end of [[Reconstruction]] limited their civic and political rights. Notably, the states that supported these policies were largely governed by members of the [[Democrat Party]].
Blacks left the rural south in two waves, the first around 1915-20, the second coming after [[World War II]] when machinery ended the need for large numbers of people to pick cotton by hand. The migrants headed to the large cities of the North and West, and also in the South, moving from very poorly paid farm work to wage labor.