The Great Migration Escape

Abstract

This chapter provides an account of the first wave of African American migration into the Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky. It addresses the implementation of Black Codes, also known as Jim Crow laws, the convict leasing system, and how psychological and physical terror in the form of public lynchings helped maintain the social order of white supremacy. Brown attends to the role of the labor agent as a grey-market actor in facilitating the onset of the first wave of the African American Great Migration. Drawing on the oral history and archival data, the chapter distils a profile of the legendary figure, Limehouse, the white labor agent hired by United States Steel Corporation to sneak and transport black men and their families out of Alabama to Harlan County, Kentucky to work in the coalmines. The chapter also focuses on the psychosocial dimensions of this silent mass migration, specifically the spiritual strivings, the hopes, dreams, and disappointments that accompanied the Great Migration.