However, this only lasted up until mechanical cotton pickers were invented. These cotton picker machines did more work than the amount of work that can be done by hand, and were cheaper than to pay black Americans to work in the fields. As a result of mechanization many people lost their jobs and even homes. This resulted in extreme poverty conditions for the blacks. In the film, Mildred Fleming talks about the poverty she lived in, and how her family did not have enough to eat. She says she would be starving but couldn't eat any of the food she was cooking while she was cooking because she had to leave some for the rest of the family. .
In the 1920s, blacks began to migrate to North to escape the racism of Jim Crow laws, economic oppression, and seek better job opportunities. It was hard for them to move because they did not want to leave their families and friends behind, but they were fed up with all this negativity towards them and wanted a better life. Going to the city of Chicago seemed to be the most common place to go and start fresh because it provided job opportunities and housing. Most of these jobs were manufacturing related or military related, because of World War I. The pay for these jobs was reasonable. Most of the blacks lived in one-room units called kitchenettes. .
Africans Americans were doing well in Chicago and were prospering; and so more and more Africans moved there. This caused an issue of overcrowding. Overcrowding of African Americans led to a competition with whites for jobs and housing, thus angering many whites. They did not like the blacks and did not want them moving into their neighborhoods. As more black people moved into white neighborhoods the whites moved out to the suburbs. Rents were doubled if given to a black family. This shows that segregation was no different in the North than the South. Racism and prejudice was widespread and worsened the relationships between black and whites causing riots, and even lynching to occur.