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Most African Americans in Virginia and the Deep South Genetic Community can trace their ancestry back to Congo, Benin, and Togo. Unfortunately, not many specifics are known about this community before 1850 because record keeping for African Americans before the Civil War was extremely limited.

At one time almost half of all enslaved African Americans lived in Virginia. By the 1860’s black families with Virginia roots were spread throughout the “Black Belt” a crescent-shaped section of the South where the dark, rich soil was ideal for growing cotton. The Black Belt took on a second meaning as more and more enslaved African Americans were brought in large numbers to work the land in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Even after the Civil War and emancipation many African American families stayed in the South as farmers and sharecroppers.

 

Already spread throughout the South, African Americans with Virginia roots also began to spread north (1900 -1925). The agricultural economy of the South was collapsing under drought and the boll weevil and Jim Crow laws made segregation legal. Meanwhile, World War 1 had factories in the North clamoring for workers. In response, African Americans followed rail routes and families who had gone before to new homes in Northern cities like Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and New York.