After the Civil War, several all-black communities were created in the South.

One of them, Mound Bayou, Miss., is the subject of a talk at 7 p.m. Thursday at University City Library.

Tullia Brown Hamilton, researched the town's history and some of the people who left Mound Bayou and ended up in St. Louis.

In "Up From Canaan: The African American Journey From Mound Bayou to St. Louis," (PenUltimate Press, 124 pages, $17.95), she writes:

"Separate black towns served several purposes. The towns were intended to allow black people to demonstrate that they had the ability to govern themselves. Black towns were expected to stimulate the development of black businesses and the creation of wealth within the black community, which some blacks believed would open the door to full political participation. Black towns also were intended to protect black people from the insults and violence that were the hallmarks of life in the United States."

 

Mound Bayou was founded in 1887 by two former slaves. In 2010, it had 1,533 people.

After 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered in 1955, black reporters covering the trial in Tallahatchie, Miss., stayed in the safe haven of Mound Bayou.

Hamilton, who has been an administrator for nonprofit groups, said she was interested in finding out more about Mound Bayou and how attitudes changed after World War II, when black activists sought integration, not all-black towns.

She said many people left the town to seek jobs. Most went north to Chicago, but she found eight who came to St. Louis (since the book was published, she's found four more). The people who migrated here did so mostly because they already had relatives in St. Louis.

Pearl Montgomery told Hamilton:

"I liked Mound Bayou, but I was glad to get away from picking cotton." She and her husband settled in with her mother-in-law and in 1961 bought a house in the Central West End.

For the most part, Hamilton says, the migrants "found what they were looking for here."