Well, I'll be the first to admit that any welcome the freed slaves received up North would not have been welcoming. But a major reason why they didn't leave wasn't the result of love and kindness on the part of Southern whites as much as Black Codes and other laws restricting their movement.
Ever hear of Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, KANSAS?
I did, actually. In fact, I've gone further and read the decision. If you had done so, you would have discovered it was a combination of a number of cases, which is why the proper name is Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, et.al. The et.al. were schoolboards in Virginia, Delaware, South Carolina, and D.C. As it turns out, Topeka had taken steps to end segregation even before the Supreme Court handed down it's decision and by 1956 the entire district was integrated. Without demonstrations. Without the Klan. Without the governor proclaiming "Segregation forever." People here accepted it. Much the same happened in Delaware. The majority of the people in that state accepted the ruling and schools were integrated.
It was different in the other areas. Prince Edward County in Virginia, who was one of the defendants in the case, did away with the public school system rather than integrate it. In South Carolina, the minister who led the black families in the case in that county had his church burned and he was shot at. The people who filed the suit lost their jobs and couldn't find employment. The whites in the county abandoned the school system rather than attend with blacks.
So sure, I'll talk Brown v. Board of Ed with you. The entire case.
Depending on the size of the black population in a given area, people accepted the Brown ruling. In my area of East Tennessee, where there are few blacks, there was no trouble. I doubt there’s a massive black population in Topeka.
But in places with lots of blacks, North or South, people didn’t accept it. That’s why the public schools in those areas became almost 100% black. Whether it was Atlanta, Nashville, New Orleans, Chicago, St. Louis, or Philadelphia, or even Boston, once the integration order came down, the whites either moved across the county line or put their kids in private schools.
I’m glad to talk Brown with you, too.