Tuesday, March 6, 2012

THE NEGRO EXODUS


"THE NEGRO EXODUS --SCENES ON THE WHARVES AT VICKSBURG." Former slaves from the Deep South swarm ports like Vicksburg on the Mississippi River on their way to St. Louis, the major waypoint to their final destination in Kansas. Owing to disenfranchisement by new state laws, poverty, and violence from racist Southern Democratic groups like the White League and the Ku Klux Klan, these "Exodusters" left the South in droves to seek new lives and more freedom. The Exodus lasted two years (1879-1880) with a total of 15,000 impoverished blacks eventually reaching colonies in the Midwest via St. Louis and also through Texas.  [Library of Congress]

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