What happened to most African Americans once they were freed?

Most had no money and Alf of people wouldn't offer them jobs so they found people that were willing to give them work but pay them in the form of housing and food not actual money so if they were to try to leave they would have no money so must choose to stay in those places to support there family

African Americans celebrated their newfound freedom both privately and in public jubilees.

But life in the years after slavery also proved to be difficult and most southern black Americans, though free, lived in desperate rural poverty. Having been denied education and wages under slavery, ex-slaves were often forced by the necessity of their economic circumstances to rent land from former white slave owners.