etween 1940 and 1960, around 7 million Appalachian people migrated to the northern Midwestern cities, primarily coming from Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee, this increase of internal migration was the result of the decline of the coal industry and the 1924 Immigration Act forcing automotive companies to seek workers from within the country rather than immigrants.

Poor Appalachian people who arrived in the metropolitan Midwestern cities were often looked down upon with disdain. In a 1953 survey conducted by Wayne State University, Detroit residents were asked to identify "undesirable people" in the city; "Poor Southern whites" and "hillbillies" were tied at the top with criminals and gangsters as the most undesirable, being considered more undesirable than "Negroes", "drifters", and "transients". They were thought to be "quick with a knife", prone to criminal behavior and coming from intensely rural backgrounds, unaccustomed to the restrictiveness of urban living.

Labor unions and police departments acted against Appalachian migrants, harassing them, excluding them from unions and civic organizations, some landlords and apartment complexes would even refuse to house any white with a "southern" accent.

This discrimination led poor Appalachians to unite with the most unlikely of demographics; urban blacks. The most notable example of this occurred in Chicago, when white Appalachian youth in street gangs from Uptown united with the Black Panthers to protest, march and strike for housing rights, an end to discrimination against both Appalachian and black residents of Chicago, inclusion in unions and other issues negatively impacting both communities. This eventually grew into the Rainbow Coalition, a revolutionary Maoist group with ties to the SDS and Weather Underground, representing the White Appalachian, Black and Hispanic communities of Chicago.