Millions of black Americans left the Deep South fleeing violence and seeking opportunity during the Great Migration, one of the most dramatic demographic shifts in twentieth-century American history. Some communities welcomed these newcomers with open arms, going so far as to actively recruit them as industrial labor, while others attempted to shut their doors, to maintain their homogeneity through the threat of violence against black people. These different reactions could take place in towns adjacent to one another, with locally-specific causes shaping the divergence.  

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