Exodusters

Exodusters were a name given to African Americans who moved from states that were along the Mississippi River to Kansas. This happened in the late 1800s. It was called the Exoduster movement or the Exodus of 1879. It was the first migration of black people after the American Civil War. About 40,000 black people moved from the south to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Colorado.
Black people moved from the south because they were treated very bad. They were running away from groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the White League, and they were running away from black codes and Jim Crow laws. They were treated like second-class citizens. This was during Reconstruction.