In the antebellum era, planters in Maury County relied on the labor of enslaved African Americans to raise and process cotton, tobacco, and livestock (especially dairy cattle).

Also, many African Americans moved to northern and midwestern industrial cities in the 20th century to escape Jim Crow conditions and for employment opportunities, particularly during the Great Migration.

[6] It marked a new spirit of resistance by African-American veterans and others following their participation in World War II, which they believed had earned them their full rights as citizens, despite Jim Crow laws.

[7] James Stephenson, an African-American Navy veteran, was with his mother at a store, where she learned that a radio she had left for repair had been sold.

Stephenson had been a welterweight on the Navy boxing team and retaliated by hitting Fleming, who broke a window.

When the mob did not disperse, about 100 African-American men began to patrol their neighborhood, located south of the courthouse square, determined to resist.

Four police officers were shot and wounded when they entered "Mink Slide", the name given to the African-American business district, also known as "The Bottom".

They cut phone service to Mink Slide, but the owner of a funeral home managed to call Nashville and ask for help from the NAACP.

Marshall was assisted by two local attorneys, Zephaniah Alexander Looby, originally from the British West Indies, and Maurice Weaver, a white activist from Nashville.

[6] At the last murder trials in November 1946, Marshall won also acquittal for Rooster Bill Pillow, and a reduction in the sentence of Papa Kennedy, allowing him to go free on bail.

These periods related to the migration of people from rural to urban areas for work, especially as mechanization reduced the need for agricultural laborers.

In addition, these times related to the Great Migration of African Americans out of the Jim Crow South to northern and midwestern industrial cities for more opportunities.

Interstate 65 runs along the eastern portion of Maury County for about 18 miles (29 km), bypassing Columbia and Spring Hill.

[22] The Maury County Airport is a county-owned public-use airport located 2 nautical miles (3.7 km; 2.3 mi) northeast of the central business district of Mount Pleasant[23] and 8 nautical miles (15 km; 9.2 mi) southwest of Columbia.