When the South was liberated from slavery, many slaves didn't want to leave the plantations at first.

If you were a slave family who just got freed, you can stay where you are, where you have a house, a garden, food, you know the local area. You know what work is needed and how to do it. You may have elderly who can barely walk, or several toddlers who you want to keep safe. You are uneducated and were forbidden to learn to read or write. The system kept you dumb and ignorant of anything except your job and the local area around the plantation. Maybe you have some family members that were sold off a couple years ago.

If you leave you have no where to go. No job, no money, no food, and you hear stories about how former slaves are being murdered or abused or are starving with no work.

What would you do?

You would probably do what many others did. Young adults might strike out and embrace freedom, take to the road and seek out a better life. Everyone else would hope that a brother or cousin would come back someday and bring you out, but for now, leaving is the greater danger.

Take this in the same context. People have been indoctrinated into the system. For some of us, walking away from the slave system and embracing freedom is perfectly natural. For others, it's a frightening new world.