Black Southerners in the context of "Great Migration (African American)"

The Union is a term used to refer to the central government and loyal states of the United States during the American Civil War. Its military forces and civilian population resisted the purported secession of the slave states that formed the Confederate States of America following the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States. Lincoln's administration asserted the permanency of the federal government and the continuity of the United States Constitution, and it refused to recognize the Confederate government.

Nineteenth-century Americans commonly used the term Union to mean either the federal government of the United States or the unity of the states within the federal constitutional framework. The Union can also refer to the people or territory of the states that remained loyal to the national government during the war. The loyal U.S states located mostly above the Mason–Dixon line were also known as the North, although four southern border states and the future state of West Virginia remained loyal to the Union, and Black Southerners and many Southern Unionists opposed secession and supported the Union war effort.

Soul food is the ethnic cuisine of African Americans. Originating in the American South from the cuisines of enslaved Africans transported from Africa through the Atlantic slave trade, soul food is closely associated with the cuisine of the Southern United States. The expression "soul food" originated in the mid-1960s when "soul" was a common word used to describe African-American culture. Soul food uses cooking techniques and ingredients from West African, Central African, Western European, and Indigenous cuisine of the Americas.

The cuisine was initially denigrated as low quality and belittled because of its origin. It was seen as low-class food, and African Americans in the North looked down on their Black Southern compatriots who preferred soul food (see the Great Migration). The concept evolved from describing the food of slaves in the South, to being taken up as a primary source of pride in the African American community even in the North, such as in New York City, Chicago and Detroit.

The Atlanta Compromise (also known as accommodation or accommodationism) was a proposal put forth in 1895 by African American leader Booker T. Washington in a speech he gave at the Cotton States and International Exposition. He urged Black Southerners to accept segregation and to temporarily refrain from campaigning for equal rights, including the right to vote. In return, he advocated that Black people would receive basic legal protections, access to property ownership, employment opportunities, and vocational and industrial education. Upon the speech's conclusion, the white attendees gave Washington a standing ovation.

Under the direction of Washington's Tuskegee Machine organization, the Compromise was the dominant policy pursued by Black leaders in the South from 1895 to 1915. During this period, the educational infrastructure for Black people improved, with a focus on vocational schools and schools for children. However, Southern states continued to aggressively adopt Jim Crow laws which codified segregation in nearly all aspects of life. Violence against Black people continued: over fifty Black people were lynched most years until 1922. Beginning around 1910 – contrary to the advice offered by Washington in his speech – millions of African Americans began migrating northward, relocating to major urban centers in the North.