Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, General Research and Reference Division

Edward King, The Great South (Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Co., 1874)

The migration of free blacks and runaways from the South to the North contributed to the expansion of small black communities in a number of Northern cities, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. However, the distribution of the black population had not changed dramatically by 1874. The overwhelming majority of African Americans remained in the South.