Editing Clarksdale, Mississippi (section)

====The Great Migration====
The movement of large numbers of people both to and from Clarksdale is prominent in the city's history. Prior to 1920, Delta plantations were in constant need of laborers, and many black families moved to the area to work as sharecroppers. After World War I, plantation owners even encouraged blacks to move from the other parts of Mississippi to the Delta region for work. By this time, Clarksdale had also become home to a multi-cultural mixture of Lebanese, Italian, Chinese and Jewish immigrant merchants.<ref name="Lemann"/>{{Page needed|date=February 2025}}

By 1920, the price of cotton had fallen, and many blacks living in the Delta began to leave. The [[Illinois Central Railroad]] operated a large depot in Clarksdale and provided a Chicago-bound route for those seeking greater economic opportunities in the north; it soon became the primary departure point for many.<ref name="Lemann"/>{{Page needed|date=February 2025}}

During the 1940s, three events occurred which increased the exodus of African-Americans from Clarksdale. First, it became possible to commercially produce a cotton crop entirely by machine, which lessened the need for a large, low-paid workforce. Coincidentally, it was on 28 acres of the nearby Hopson Plantation where the [[International Harvester|International Harvester Company]] perfected the single-row mechanical cotton picking machine in 1946; soil was prepared, seeded, picked and bailed entirely by machines, while weeds were eradicated by flame.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dafvm.msstate.edu/landmarks/07/fall/4-6.pdf|title=Modern Cotton Production Has Deep Delta Roots|last=Ratliff|first=Bob|work=Mississippi Landmarks magazine|publisher=Division of Agriculture, Forestry, and Veterinary Medicine at [[Mississippi State University]]|quote=Testing of the IH machines and machines produced by the Rust Cotton Picker Company in Memphis took place at the Delta Branch throughout the 1930s, and IH sent engineers and prototype pickers to the Hopson Plantation.|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100613165631/http://www.dafvm.msstate.edu/landmarks/07/fall/4-6.pdf|archive-date=June 13, 2010|df=mdy-all}}</ref>