Whereas the theme for Black History Month 2019 is Black Migrations , which emphasizes the movement of people of African descent to new destinations and to new social realities; Whereas this resolution focuses primarily on the migration of African Americans, which is one of the important phases in American history; Whereas inclusive of earlier centuries, this theme focuses specifically on the 20th century through today; Whereas, beginning in the 20th century, African-American migration patterns included relocation from Southern farms to Southern cities, from the South to the Northeast, Midwest, and West, and from the Caribbean to United States cities; Whereas the relocation of formerly enslaved individuals and their descendants also included unfavorable interactions with law enforcement that often resulted in imprisonment and convict leasing; Whereas the remains of 95 persons, thought to be of African ancestry, who were subjected to the State’s convict-leasing system were discovered at the construction site of Fort Bend Independent School District’s James Reese Career and Technical Center in Sugar Land, Texas; Whereas this movement known as the Great Migration was caused by a lack of economic opportunities, harsh segregationist laws, and the terror perpetrated against African-American communities by the Ku Klux Klan; Whereas the Great Migration exposed the racial divisions and disparities that continue to plague the Nation and dominate headlines today, from police killings of unarmed African Americans to mass incarceration to widely documented biases in employment, housing, health care, and education; Whereas, prior to 1910, more than 90 percent of the African-American population lived in the South, but by the 1970s, 47 percent of all African Americans were living in the North and West; Whereas, during World War I, when slowing immigration from Europe created a labor shortage in the North, companies began recruiting African Americans to fill the assembly lines and work the steel mills, railroads, and factories