In the mid 1800s, most workers in the North worked in factories. Large numbers of immigrants from Ireland and Germany made up the work force. Meanwhile, large plantations in the South were producing most of the world's cotton supply. Plantation owners depended on slaves to get the work done cheaply.

Even though Congress outlawed importing slaves from Africa in 1808, the slave population kept increasing. Opposition to slavery grew. In 1831, Nat Turner led a group of enslaved people on a rebellion, killing slave-owning families. Eventually he and his followers were caught and killed. Soon after, some states made it illegal for African Americans to gather in public places. Frederick Douglass, a great orator and escaped slave, used his written and spoken words to express his opposition to slavery.

By 1850, there were over 430,000 free African Americans in the United States. Being free did not mean that they were free from prejudice. They were denied equal legal and voting rights, and the better jobs were closed to them. Elizabeth Jennings refused to leave a "whites only" bus and went to court to fight the bus company's policy, where the judge ruled in her favor. Many free African Americans in the North established their own organizations, schools, and communities to meet their needs.