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Philadelphia
"Third Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color considered the colonization of West Africa. After much deliberation, the assembly promoted immigration to Mexican Texas as a better alternative." -
Period: to
It was a struggle.
"Instead they chose political and cultural struggle because, for them, the West was the "end of the line both socially and geographically. There was no better place to go."" -
Oregon Territory
"African Americans had ventured into Oregon Territory as early as the 1840s." -
Period: to
Migration Period At Its' Peak
African American population had increased significantly due to slavery being banned -
Oklahoma Territory
"Oklahoma Territory became the other major area for African-American migration. It was created in 1866 out of the western half of the original Indian Territory on land originally set aside for settlement by Native Americans." -
Kansas Strip
"Between 1870 and 1890, some thirty thousand migrants settled in the state. Kansas was the closest western state to the Old South that allowed blacks to homestead in the 1870s, and it became a magnet for land-hungry newcomers from Missouri, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, as well as such Deep South states as Louisiana and Mississippi." -
Tennessee
"After the Civil War, thousands of African Americans relocated to areas free of racial restrictions and violence. The first of these "political migrations" was a mid-1870s exodus from Tennessee. It was led by Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, who recognized the limitations of Reconstruction-era political reform in the South." -
Newfound City in Kansas
"In 1877, a white developer, together with six prospective black homesteaders from the South, founded the town of Nicodemus." -
Amidst Kansas Still
"...a few hundred people settled in Morris and Graham counties." -
Period: to
Rise and Decline of Black Land Ownership
"By 1900, African American farmers owned 1.5 million acres valued at $11 million. Black land ownership peaked at the turn of the twentieth century. By 1910, it was in decline, and many of the children of the first generation of Exodusters now fell easy prey to the siren call of the cities." -
Oklahoma gains statehood
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Black Population Increase
"...the combined black population of the five largest western cities was only eighteen thousand..." -
Nebraska
"Few African Americans answered Burton's call until the Kinkaid Homestead Act of 1904 threw open thousands of acres in northwestern Nebraska's Sand Hills regions. By 1910, twenty-four families, most from Omaha, had claimed 14,000 acres of land in Cherry County. Eight years later, 185 African Americans homesteaded 40,000 acres around a small all-black community, aptly named Audacious." -
Settling West
"World War II initiated the largest migration of African Americans in the region's history. During the 1940s, the West's black population grew by 443,000 (33 percent), with most of the newcomers settling in the coastal cities of California, Oregon, and Washington. Oklahoma lost 23,300 African Americans, 14 percent of its black population, while California gained 338,000. " -
Poverty Strikes
"...thousands of African Americans who had been "essential workers" during the war were unemployed and roamed the streets of Los Angeles, Oakland, and Portland." -
Population Influx
"...the region never again experienced the huge influxes of World War II." -
Discrimination is More Common
"...the year of the Watts Uprising in Los Angeles, it was clear that racial discrimination in employment, housing, and public schools had made the region remarkably similar to the rest of the nation."
