The first city where southern blacks migrated to in large numbers and contributed to the development of the blues was Chicago. The Great Migration saw a significant influx of African Americans from the rural South to urban areas like Chicago, where they brought their musical traditions and helped shape the city's vibrant blues scene.
Sharecropping trapped many southern blacks after the Civil War. In this system, landless farmers, often former slaves, worked the land owned by others and in return received a small share of the crops. However, they often remained in cycles of debt and poverty due to unfair rental agreements and lack of economic independence.
As slaves, Blacks were converted to Christianity. After the war, the Black Church became the most important institution of the Black community. Depending on where they lived, southern Blacks had varied experiences. While larger cities like New Orleans made life for newly freed slaves somewhat less difficult than the rest of the south, Black Codes were enacted greatly restricting what Blacks could do and how they could live. The Black Church became the nucleus of the southern Black community and religious, political as well as most social interactions were largely centered there.
Plantation slaves typically lived and worked in rural areas, subject to harsher conditions and more limited freedoms compared to city slaves who often had more opportunities for autonomy and financial independence. Free blacks still faced discrimination and limited rights, but had more control over their own lives compared to slaves.
Life for free blacks in the South was generally more restricted due to harsher racism, limited economic opportunities, and stricter laws governing their behavior. In contrast, free blacks in the North had more access to education, employment, and social services, although they still faced discrimination and prejudice. Overall, both regions presented challenges for free blacks, but the South tended to have more severe conditions.
Free blacks often lived in cities for better economic opportunities, social networks, and protection from discrimination and violence compared to rural areas. Cities offered access to jobs, education, and cultural institutions that were not available in rural areas. Additionally, cities provided a sense of community and solidarity among free blacks facing similar challenges.
There was one after the civil war when 60,000 blacks migrated west looking for opportunity in Kansas and Oklahoma. There was another one between 1940 and 1970 when millions of southern blacks migrated north to industrial cities like Chicago and Detroit looking for work.
Southern states enacted laws that restricted freedom for blacks.
Migrated to urban areas in vast numbers
No. But there were some free blacks in the southern states.
Southern blacks
blacks
There is no such thing. All southerners use the same idioms! They become "southern Black" idioms, when blacks move north and forget their culture.
It meant freedom
No blacks went north to escape the slavery of the southern plantation owners in the south.
because the confeterats never cared about the blacks they ivisable them
ten %
blacks are the majority