Question

The map below shows migration routes followed by African Americans after the Civil War.

Which of the following is the best explanation for the migration patterns shown on the map?
- Agricultural workers moved to areas of the country that had not been devastated by the Civil War.
- African Americans moved to the North to rejoin family members who had escaped from slavery before the Civil War.
- The federal government offered free land to emancipated slaves who left the plantations where they had been enslaved.
- Emancipated slaves left the South to escape radical discrimination and to seek economic opportunities in the North and West.

Answer 1

Emancipated slaves left the South to escape radical discrimination and to seek economic opportunities in the North and West.

Answer 2

The best explanation for the migration patterns shown on the map is that emancipated slaves left the South to escape radical discrimination and to seek economic opportunities in the North and West, in a process known as Great Migration.

Step-by-step explanation:

The Great Migration was a migration of about 2 million African Americans from the rural areas of the southern United States to the industrial cities of the north, northeast and west in the decades between 1900 and 1930. It was one of the central events in the history of African Americans in the 20th century. Most blacks came from the rural states of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. They created larger African-American communities in cities such as New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Omaha, Indianapolis, St. Louis, or Pittsburgh, some of which even have an African-American majority today. This migration was caused mainly because of the failure of Reconstruction, which ended with a white regain of power in Southern states, with a consequent decline in rights that African-Americans had won after the Civil War.