To understand the significance of the Now Mr. Lincoln project, it is essential to understand the demographic context of Tacoma in the 1960s. Like most American cities of the mid-20th century, Tacoma was highly racially segregated, with its substantial black population residing almost exclusively in the Hilltop, Central Tacoma, and Eastside neighborhoods. Not coincidentally, the vast majority of the black-owned businesses supported by the Now Mr. Lincoln campaign were located in these neighborhoods as well. However, as the maps displaying black population distributions in 1970 and 2010 indicate, all of these neighborhoods were affected by the massive exurban migrations that occurred across the country in the late 20th century. In the Tacoma area, middle-class blacks fled their historical inner-urban neighborhoods for the more affluent and recently desegregated suburbs of Fircrest, Lakewood, and West Tacoma.

The map comparing black populations and average income levels in 1970 demonstrate the motives behind this mass migration, as the most black-concentrated neighborhoods, like Hilltop and Eastside, are by a wide margin the most impoverished as well. The wealthiest enclaves of Pierce County, such as University Place and Northeast Tacoma, are almost entirely devoid of black residents, indicating that, while formal housing segregation ended in the 1960s, de facto segregation would continue for many decades after.