Historically, this region has been considered the most "Southern" of Kentucky; having an agricultural economy tied to cotton plantations and the use of enslaved labor before the Civil War, the Purchase in the years after the war voted as the most staunchly Democratic region in Kentucky. For well over a century, it provided such overwhelming margins for Democratic candidates that Kentucky Democrats routinely called it the "Gibraltar of Democracy". The most widely circulated newspaper and media outlet in the Purchase, "The Paducah Sun", was once named the "Paducah Sun-Democrat" (see WPSD-TV). Due to changing demographics, most counties in the Purchase in the early 21st century have populations that are overwhelmingly white. Many African Americans left the area after the Civil War and in the Great Migration of the 20th century.