the Civil War, the flow reversed directions
for a short time. Many who had run away during the war returned home to
be with friends and family. Thousands of others, born in the North,
hurried south to help educate and rehabilitate their brothers. However,
this flow was short-lived. As the South moved from slavery into
segregation, hope slid into disillusionment and cynicism. In 1878-79
there was a wave of migration from the south into the West. "Pap"
Singleton, an ex-slave from Tennessee, had come to the conclusion that
the ex-slaveholder and the ex-slave could not live together in harmony,
and he believed that the best solution was to develop a separate society.
As a result, he formed the Tennessee Real Estate and Homestead
Association, but there was not enough land available in Tennessee for the
program. Finally, he decided that Kansas was the ideal location in which
to build a separate Negro society. Various transportation companies saw
this scheme as a way for them to make money, and they encouraged this
westward migration. Although the original migrants to Kansas were
welcomed, opposition grew as their numbers increased. Before his death
in 1892, Singleton became disillusioned with the possibilities of
developing a separate society anywhere in the United States, and he came
to favor a return to Africa. He believed that this was the only place
where his people could escape racial discrimination. Nevertheless,
Singleton took pride in his work, and he claimed, probably with some
exaggeration, to have been responsible for transporting some 82,000
Afro-Americans from the South into Kansas.

Another ex-slave, Henry Adams, called a New Orleans Colored Convention in
1879 to examine the condition of the ex-slave throughout the South. A
comittee was formed for this purpose. It found the situation discouraging
and recommended migration into other regions. Another convention held in
Nashville reached similar conclusions, and it requested funds from
Congress to assist in the process. Funds were not forthcoming. When
Congress did investigate this vast migration, Southerners assured the
comittee that their Negroes were really very happy, and they claimed that
"the migration was a myth."

In spite of this earlier migration, the 1900 census showed that 89.7
percent of the Afro-American community still resided in the South.
One-third of the Southern population was nonwhite. The real exodus still
lay ahead.

The migrants we