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Tuesday, February 12, 2013

BLACK TOWNS IN KANSAS AND OKLAHOMA! -THESE BLACKS WERE SMART AND KNEW THAT THE WHITES WOULD NOT LET THEM LIVE IN PEACE SO THEY SOUGHT TO BE BLACK INDEPENDENT!-THESE ARE MY ANCESTORS FOR SLAVERY ON BOTH SIDES OF MY LINE!-THOSE THAT FINALLY SAW THAT THE CRACKER IS STILL GONNA STOP BLACK INDEPENDENCE LEFT THERE FOR AFRICA!- BLACK MAN THE CALL IS STILL BACK TO AFRICA IF YOU REALLY WANT BLACK FREEDOM!




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ALL-BLACK TOWNS

Town council, Boley, Oklahoma, ca. 1907–10
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African Americans left the South for the "promised land" of the West in ever-increasing numbers after the Civil War. Economic hardship, racial violence, and intolerance prompted this vast migration from states such as Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, and Arkansas. With leadership from Pap Singleton and Henry Adams, the "Exodusters" settled mainly in Kansas in 1879–80, though the movement had began a few years earlier and lasted into the next decade. The opportunity to own land attracted many of these people to the Great Plains. Reports directed back to the South claimed that landownership was a simple and cheap prospect.
By 1881 African Americans emigrants had established twelve agricultural colonies in Kansas: Nicodemus, Hodgeman, Morton City, Dunlap, Kansas City–area Colony, Parsons, Wabaunsee, Summit Township, Topeka-area Colony, Burlington, Little Coney, and the Daniel Votaw Colony. Another settlement, the Singleton Colony, seems to have never really been a viable community. Many of the other colonies lasted only a few years. The town of Nicodemus, on the other hand, founded a few years before the large exodus, prospered into the twentieth century. African Americans also established colonies in Nebraska, including the town of Dewitty. They migrated to western New Mexico, too, creating settlements such as Blackdom and Dora. Oliver Toussaint Jackson established the settlement of Dearfield, Colorado, in 1910, one of the last African American Plains agricultural communities. Many African Americans dispersed elsewhere throughout the Plains; most worked the land like their white counterparts.
During a fifty-five-year period following the end of the Civil War, African Americans built more than fifty identifiable communities in Oklahoma. Some sprouted and quickly vanished; others still survive. Achieving freedom after the Civil War, former slaves of the Cherokees, Creeks, Seminoles, Chickasaws, and Choctaws also formed towns in Indian Territory. When the U.S. government allotted land to individual Native Americans, most Indian "freedman" chose land next to other African Americans. Their farming communities sheltered self-governed economic and social institutions, including businesses, schools, and churches. Enterprising businessmen set up every imaginable kind of business, including publishing concerns whose newspapers advertised in the South for settlers.
More African Americans settled in Oklahoma Territory with the land run of 1889, which ordered "free land" to non-Indians. E. P. McCabe, former state auditor of Kansas, helped found the all-black town of Langston. By means of the Langston City Herald, which his traveling agents circulated around the South, he and other leaders hoped to bring in large numbers of African Americans whose growing political power would secure their prosperity and safety. McCabe never accomplished his goal of creating an African American state. Nevertheless, dozens of black communities sprouted and flourished in the rich topsoil of the new territory and, after 1907, the new state.
In Oklahoma and Kansas, African Americans lived relatively free from the prejudices and brutality common in racially mixed communities of the Midwest and the South. Cohesive all-black settlements offered residents the security of depending on neighbors for financial assistance and the economic opportunity provided by access to open markets for their crops.
Marshalltown, North Fork Colored, Canadian Town, and Arkansas Colored existed as early as the 1860s in Indian Territory. Other Indian Territory towns that no longer exist include Sanders, Mabelle, Wiley, Homer, Huttonville, Lee, and Rentie. Among the Oklahoma Territory towns that no longer exist are Lincoln, Cimarron City, Bailey, Zion, Emanuel, Udora, and Douglas in old Oklahoma Territory. Surviving towns include Boley, Brooksville, Clearview, Grayson, Langston, Lima, Redbird, Rentiesville, Summit, Taft, Tatums, Tullahassee, and Vernon. Boley, the largest and most renowned of these was twice inspected by African American educator Booker T. Washington, who lauded the town in Outlook Magazine in 1908.
Immediately after statehood in 1907 the Oklahoma legislature passed Jim Crow laws, and many African Americans became disenchanted with the new state. A large contingent relocated to western Canada, forming colonies such as Amber Valley, Alberta, and Maidstone, Saskatchewan. Another exodus of African Americans from the United States occurred with the "Back to Africa" movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A large group of Oklahomans joined the illfated Chief Sam expedition to Africa. Other Plains African Americans migrated to colonies in Mexico.
The collapse of the American farm economy in the 1920s and the advent of the Great Depression in 1929 spelled the end for most all-black communities. The all-black towns were, for the most part, small agricultural centers that gave nearby African American farmers a market for their cotton and other crops. The Depression devastated these towns, and residents moved west or migrated to metropolises where jobs might be found. Black towns dwindled to only a few residents.
As population dwindled, so too did the tax base. In the 1930s many railroads failed, isolating small towns from regional and national markets. This spelled the end of many of the black towns. During the Depression, whites denied credit to African Americans, creating an almost impossible situation for black farmers and businessmen. Even Boley, one of the most successful towns, declared bankruptcy in 1939. Today, only a few all-black towns survive, but their legacy of economic and political freedom is well remembered.
Larry O'Dell Oklahoma Historical Society
Crockett, Norman. The Black Towns. Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1979.
Hamilton, Kenneth Marvin. Black Towns and Profit: Promotion and Development in the Trans-Appalachian West, 1877–1915. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991.
Taylor, Quintard. In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528–1990. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998.
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ALL-BLACK TOWNS

The All-Black towns of Oklahoma represent a unique chapter in American history. Nowhere else, neither in the Deep South nor in the Far West, did so many African American men and women come together to create, occupy, and govern their own communities. From 1865 to 1920 African Americans created more than fifty identifiable towns and settlements, some of short duration and some still existing at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
All-Black towns grew in Indian Territory after the Civil War when the former slaves of the Five Civilized Tribes settled together for mutual protection and economic security. When the United States government forced American Indians to accept individual land allotments, most Indian "freedmen" chose land next to other African Americans. They created cohesive, prosperous farming communities that could support businesses, schools, and churches, eventually forming towns. Entrepreneurs in these communities started every imaginable kind of business, including newspapers, and advertised throughout the South for settlers. Many African Americans migrated to Oklahoma, considering it a kind of "promise land."
When the Land Run of 1889 opened yet more "free" land to non-Indian settlement, African Americans from the Old South rushed to newly created Oklahoma. E. P. McCabe, a former state auditor of Kansas, helped found Langston and encouraged African Americans to settle in that All-Black town. To further his cause, McCabe established the Langston City Herald and circulated it, often by means of traveling agents, throughout the South. McCabe hoped that his tactics would create an African American political power block in Oklahoma Territory. Other African American leaders had a vision of an All-Black state. Although this dream was never realized, many All-Black communities sprouted and flourished in the rich topsoil of the new territory and, after 1907, the new state.
In these towns African Americans lived free from the prejudices and brutality found in other racially mixed communities of the Midwest and the South. African Americans in Oklahoma and Indian Territories would create their own communities for many reasons. Escape from discrimination and abuse would be a driving factor. All-Black settlements offered the advantage of being able to depend on neighbors for financial assistance and of having open markets for crops. Arthur Tolson, a pioneering historian of blacks in Oklahoma, asserts that many African Americans turned to "ideologies of economic advancement, self-help, and racial solidarity."
Marshalltown, North Fork Colored, Canadian Colored, and Arkansas Colored existed as early as the 1860s in Indian Territory. Other Indian Territory towns that no longer exist include Sanders, Mabelle, Wiley, Homer, Huttonville, Lee, and Rentie. Among the Oklahoma Territory towns no longer in existence are Lincoln, Cimarron City, Bailey, Zion, Emanuel, Udora, and Douglas. Towns that still survive are Boley, Brooksville, Clearview, Grayson, Langston, Lima, Red Bird, Rentiesville, Summit, Taft, Tatums, Tullahassee, and Vernon. The largest and most renowned of these was Boley. Booker T. Washington, nationally prominent African American educator, visited Boley twice and even submitted a positive article on the town to Outlook Magazine in 1908.
The passage of many Jim Crow laws by the Oklahoma Legislature immediately after statehood caused some African Americans to become disillusioned with the infant state. During this time Canada promoted settlement and, although the campaign focused on whites, a large contingent of African Americans relocated to that nation's western plains, forming colonies at Amber Valley, Alberta, and Maidstone, Saskatchewan. Another exodus from Oklahoma occurred with the "Back to Africa" movements of the early twentieth century. A large group of Oklahomans joined the ill-fated Chief Sam expedition to Africa. A number of other African Americans migrated to colonies in Mexico.
White distrust also limited the growth of these All-Black towns. As early as 1911 whites in Okfuskee County attempted to block further immigration and to force African Americans into mixed but racially segregated communities incapable of self-support. Several of these white farmers signed oaths pledging to "never rent, lease, or sell land in Okfuskee County to any person of Negro blood, or agent of theirs; unless the land be located more than one mile from a white or Indian resident." To further stem the black migration to eastern Oklahoma a similar oath was developed to prevent the hiring of "Negro labor."
Events of the 1920s and 1930s spelled the end for most black communities. The All-Black towns in Oklahoma were, for the most part, small agricultural centers that gave nearby African American farmers a market. Prosperity generally depended on cotton and other crops. The Great Depression devastated these towns, forcing residents to go west and north in search of jobs. These flights from Oklahoma caused a huge population decrease in black towns.
As people left, the tax base withered, putting the towns in financial jeopardy. In the 1930s many railroads failed, isolating small towns in Oklahoma from regional and national markets. As a result, many of the black towns could not survive. During lean years whites would not extend credit to African Americans, creating an almost impossible situation for black farmers and businessmen to overcome. Even one of the most successful towns, Boley, declared bankruptcy in 1939. Today, only thirteen All-Black towns still survive, but their legacy of economic and political freedom is well remembered.
SEE ALSO: AFRICAN AMERICANS, BOLEY, BROOKSVILLE, CLEARVIEW, FREEDMEN, LANGSTON, LINCOLN CITY, EDWARD McCABE, RED BIRD, RENTIESVILLE, SEGREGATION, SETTLEMENT PATTERNS, SUMMIT, TAFT, TATUMS, TULLAHASSEE, VERNON
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Black Dispatch (Oklahoma City), 8 March 1923. Norman Crockett, The Black Towns (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1979). Norman Crockett, "Witness to History: Booker T. Washington Visits Boley," The Chronicles of Oklahoma 67 (Winter 1989-90). Kenneth Lewallan, "Chief Alfred Sam: Black Nationalism on the Great Plains, 1913-14," Journal of the West 16 (January 1977). Bruce Shepard, "North to the Promised Land: Black Migration to the Canadian Plains," The Chronicles of Oklahoma 66 (Fall 1988).
Larry O'Dell
© Oklahoma Historical Society
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Magazine | Okiecentric

Oklahoma’s All-Black Towns

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Posted 06.05.10

Prominently in Kansas, and then principally in Oklahoma, towns founded by black trailblazers swelled in the post-Reconstruction era. Black Southern migrants, “Exodusters,” formed their own rural, frontier communities. They sought economic opportunity, full citizenship rights, and self-governance: socioeconomic uplift, sprinkled with a generous measure of hope.
In addition to black homesteaders, some persons of African ancestry prospered because of Native American affiliations—through the bonds of slavery, by blood, and in affinity relations. All-black colonies populated by these “Natives” sprang up in Indian Territory, the eastern portion of modern-day Oklahoma.
Edward Preston McCabe emerged as the father of the Oklahoma all-black town movement. McCabe, a Republican, served as Kansas State Auditor in the State of Kansas from 1882 – 1886. He once lived in Nicodemus, Kansas, a seminal all-black town.
On April 22, 1889, McCabe joined 50,000 homesteaders in the Oklahoma Land Run. This was the opening of “Oklahoma Territory,” Indian Country land appropriated by the federal government for general settlement. On these acres of aspiration, McCabe hoped to germinate an all-black state.
In 1890, McCabe called on President Benjamin Harrison to press the case for an all-black state. McCabe believed that a self-governing, all-black enclave would offer his people the freedom and opportunity routinely denied them elsewhere in America. In the end, his entreaties failed.
McCabe soldiered on. He founded Langston, Oklahoma, on October 22, 1890, and established the McCabe Townsite Company and the Langston City Herald newspaper to promote its growth and development. McCabe developed recruiting bulletins and hired agents for his Oklahoma “boosterism” efforts.
McCabe drew throngs to unspoiled Oklahoma—“land of the red people” in the Choctaw language. These pioneers founded more than fifty all-black towns in Oklahoma.
Despite an auspicious beginning, the all-black town movement crested between 1890 and 1910. Oklahoma attained statehood in 1907 and, with it, roundly embraced “Jim Crow.” By 1910, the American economy had shifted from agricultural to industrial-based. These developments (i.e., the rise of racism; the demise of agrarianism) doomed many of these unique, historic oases. The few that remain serve as monuments to the human spirit.
Oklahoma’s pioneering black forefathers and foremothers planted the trees under whose shade we now sit. The value of their legacy to us—the likes of Boley, Clearview, Langston, Red Bird, Rentiesville, Taft, Tatums, Tullahassee—is inestimable. We owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude.
Oklahoma’s all-black towns, some still viable, others long gone, represent a significant aspect of the African-American struggle for freedom, justice, and equality. This rich history should be resurrected, reclaimed, and remembered.
Photo of Langston, Oklahoma by George Thomas

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MIGRATION TO KANSAS-


The Western Migration
Overview
The Early Black West
The Far West
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Migration to Oklahoma
Moving Further West
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World War II and After in the Black West
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Migration to Oklahoma >
Kansas, which had been a sanctuary for runaways during the Civil War, continued to loom large in the minds of many African-American Southerners. Between 1870 and 1890, some thirty thousand migrants settled in the state. Kansas was the closest western state to the Old South that allowed blacks to homestead in the 1870s, and it became a magnet for land-hungry newcomers from Missouri, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, as well as such Deep South states as Louisiana and Mississippi.
The New Man: Twenty-nine Years a Slave, Twenty-nine Years a Free ManThe New Man: Twenty-nine Years a Slave, Twenty-nine Years a Free Man by Henry Clay Bruce
Law, Politics and Leavenworth: A Beginning     , Chapter TwoA Black Odyssey: John Lewis Waller and the Promise of American Life, 1878-1900Law, Politics and Leavenworth: A Beginning , Chapter Two from A Black Odyssey: John Lewis Waller and the Promise of American Life, 1878-1900 by Randall Bennett Woods
Migration to Kansas Preceding the Exodus     , Chapter 12Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After ReconstructionMigration to Kansas Preceding the Exodus , Chapter 12 from Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Reconstruction by Nell Irvin Painter

The 1862 Homestead Act applied to Kansas and other western states and territories: settlers - regardless of their race or gender - could pay a small filing fee and receive 160 acres from the federal government. In return, they agreed to reside on the land, and improve it over a five-year period. After six months, they could purchase the property for $1.25 an acre.
Another factor pulling black migrants to Kansas was the state's powerful abolitionist tradition. Here, John Brown had first battled to free slaves, and here the first black soldiers joined the Union Army. Kansas had welcomed the Emancipation Proclamation and was among the first to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. "I am anxious to reach your state," wrote a black Louisianian to the governor of Kansas in 1879, "not because of the great race [for land] now made for it but because of the sacredness of her soil washed by the blood of humanitarians for the cause of black freedom."
After the Civil War, thousands of African Americans relocated to areas free of racial restrictions and violence.
Interview with Bill SimsKansas Narratives, Volume 6Interview with Bill Sims from Kansas Narratives, Volume 6
The Eldorado of their Foolish Dreams     , Chapter 6In Search of Canaan: Black Migration to Kansas, 1879-80The Eldorado of their Foolish Dreams , Chapter 6 from In Search of Canaan: Black Migration to Kansas, 1879-80 by Robert G. Athearn

The first of these "political migrations" was a mid-1870s exodus from Tennessee. It was led by Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, who recognized the limitations of Reconstruction-era political reform in the South.
United States. Congress. Senate. Select Committee to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States. “Testimony of Benjamin Singleton,” Report and testimony of the Select Committee of the United States Senate to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States: in three parts.United States. Congress. Senate. Select Committee to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States. “Testimony of Benjamin Singleton,” Report and testimony of the Select Committee of the United States Senate to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States: in three parts.

Singleton had escaped a dozen times during his years of enslavement, finally reaching Canada as a passenger on the Underground Railroad. In 1874, while working as a carpenter in Nashville, he distributed a circular, The Advantage of Living in a Free State, encouraging migration to Kansas. At least ten thousand African Americans journeyed to the Sunflower State between 1874 and 1890, partly in response to his call.
United States. Congress. Senate. Select Committee to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States. “Testimony of J.W. Wheeler,” Report and testimony of the Select Committee of the United States Senate to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States: in three parts.United States. Congress. Senate. Select Committee to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States. “Testimony of J.W. Wheeler,” Report and testimony of the Select Committee of the United States Senate to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States: in three parts.

In 1877, a white developer, together with six prospective black homesteaders from the South, founded the town of Nicodemus. They envisioned a self-sustaining, self-governing black agricultural community on the Kansas frontier. Named after a legendary African prince who purchased his freedom from bondage, the new town quickly captured the nation's attention. In July, the first thirty colonists arrived from Kentucky. They were joined the following spring by an additional 150 men and women from Tennessee, Missouri, and Mississippi.

Nothing in their experiences had prepared the migrants for life on the Kansas frontier. The flat, barren, windswept High Plains, known for blazing summer heat and bitter winter cold, were better suited to growing cactus than corn and wheat. One of the settlers, Williana Hickman, was dismayed to discover that the townsfolk lived not in houses, but in dugouts. "We landed and struck tents," she recalled. "The scenery was not at all inviting and I began to cry."

Despite their initial misgivings, Hickman and most of the early colonists stayed on. By 1880, 258 blacks and 58 whites resided in the town and the surrounding area. For African Americans across the country, Nicodemus became an important symbol of self-governance and economic enterprise.
Nicodemus, Kansas     , Chapter 1Black Towns and Profit: Promotion and Development in the Trans-Appalachian West, 1877-1915Nicodemus, Kansas , Chapter 1 from Black Towns and Profit: Promotion and Development in the Trans-Appalachian West, 1877-1915 by Kenneth Marvin Hamilton

But the town's prospects were always precarious and, in the 1880s, it underwent a steady decline. The winter blizzards of 1885 destroyed 40 percent of the wheat crop, and settlers began to leave. Two years later, the Missouri Pacific Railroad bypassed the town and, as was the case for hundreds of other communities cut off from the railway, Nicodemus's fate was sealed. After 1888, local boosters ceased trying to attract new settlers, and prominent citizens left the area.
In the summer of 1879, a few hundred people settled in Morris and Graham counties - the vanguard of some six thousand Southern African Americans who would join the exodus to Kansas.
The Negro Exodus from the Gulf States The Negro Exodus from the Gulf States by Douglass, Frederick, 1817?-1895

Although the so-called Kansas Fever conjured up images of a leaderless movement of impoverished freed men and women, driven by blind faith toward a better place, it was a rational response to conditions in the South. When a St. Louis Globe reporter asked a woman with a child at her breast if she would return to her former home, she replied, "What, go back! . . . I'd sooner starve here."
The Exodus of 1879The Journal of Negro History, vol. 21, no. 2 (April 1936)The Exodus of 1879 from The Journal of Negro History, vol. 21, no. 2 (April 1936) by John G. Van Dusen
Benjamin, or 'Pap,' Singleton and His FollowersThe Journal of Negro History, vol 33. no. 1 (January 1948)Benjamin, or 'Pap,' Singleton and His Followers from The Journal of Negro History, vol 33. no. 1 (January 1948) by Roy Garvin
Negro Exodus: Report of Col. Frank H. Fletcher, Agent Appointed by the St. Louis Commission to Visit Kansas for the Purpose of Obtaining Information in Regard to Colored EmigrationNegro Exodus: Report of Col. Frank H. Fletcher, Agent Appointed by the St. Louis Commission to Visit Kansas for the Purp... by Frank H. Fletcher

But Topeka Mayor Michael C. Case spoke for many of his city's white residents when he refused to spend municipal funds to aid the Exodusters, as they were called, suggesting the money would be better used to return them to the South. The Topeka Colored Citizen, on the other hand, celebrated the migration: "Our advice . . . to the people of the South, Come West, Come to Kansas . . . it is better to starve to death in Kansas than be shot and killed in the South."
The Kansas exodus ended almost as suddenly as it had begun. Its demise was the result of neither white opposition, nor of the advice of leaders such as Frederick Douglass that African Americans remain in the South, nor of the machinations of swindlers who preyed on the people's gullibility. Rather, word filtered back that little free land remained and that many Exodusters were still destitute a year after their arrival. Southern blacks realized that Kansas was not the "promised land." Although migration from Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana continued after 1880, it never reached the level of the spring and summer of 1879.
Prominently in Kansas, and then principally in Oklahoma, towns founded by black trailblazers swelled in the post-Reconstruction era. Black Southern migrants, “Exodusters,” formed their own rural, frontier communities. They sought economic opportunity, full citizenship rights, and self-governance: socioeconomic uplift, sprinkled with a generous measure of hope.
In addition to black homesteaders, some persons of African ancestry prospered because of Native American affiliations—through the bonds of slavery, by blood, and in affinity relations. All-black colonies populated by these “Natives” sprang up in Indian Territory, the eastern portion of modern-day Oklahoma.
Edward Preston McCabe emerged as the father of the Oklahoma all-black town movement. McCabe, a Republican, served as Kansas State Auditor in the State of Kansas from 1882 – 1886. He once lived in Nicodemus, Kansas, a seminal all-black town.
On April 22, 1889, McCabe joined 50,000 homesteaders in the Oklahoma Land Run. This was the opening of “Oklahoma Territory,” Indian Country land appropriated by the federal government for general settlement. On these acres of aspiration, McCabe hoped to germinate an all-black state.
In 1890, McCabe called on President Benjamin Harrison to press the case for an all-black state. McCabe believed that a self-governing, all-black enclave would offer his people the freedom and opportunity routinely denied them elsewhere in America. In the end, his entreaties failed.
McCabe soldiered on. He founded Langston, Oklahoma, on October 22, 1890, and established the McCabe Townsite Company and the Langston City Herald newspaper to promote its growth and development. McCabe developed recruiting bulletins and hired agents for his Oklahoma “boosterism” efforts.
McCabe drew throngs to unspoiled Oklahoma—“land of the red people” in the Choctaw language. These pioneers founded more than fifty all-black towns in Oklahoma.
Despite an auspicious beginning, the all-black town movement crested between 1890 and 1910. Oklahoma attained statehood in 1907 and, with it, roundly embraced “Jim Crow.” By 1910, the American economy had shifted from agricultural to industrial-based. These developments (i.e., the rise of racism; the demise of agrarianism) doomed many of these unique, historic oases. The few that remain serve as monuments to the human spirit.
Oklahoma’s pioneering black forefathers and foremothers planted the trees under whose shade we now sit. The value of their legacy to us—the likes of Boley, Clearview, Langston, Red Bird, Rentiesville, Taft, Tatums, Tullahassee—is inestimable. We owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude.
Oklahoma’s all-black towns, some still viable, others long gone, represent a significant aspect of the African-American struggle for freedom, justice, and equality. This rich history should be resurrected, reclaimed, and remembered.
Photo of Langston, Oklahoma by George Thomas

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Kansas State Historical Society, Copy and Reuse Restrictions Apply
Benjamin "Pap" Singleton
Benjamin "Pap" Singleton (1809-92) was born a slave in Nashville, Tennessee and lived as a fugitive in Detroit. After the Civil War, he returned to Tennessee to establish an independent black society. However, racist laws and practices inhibited African Americans from purchasing land within the state. Therefore, working with W. A. Sizemore, Columbus Johnson, and several other former slaves, Singleton promoted the migration of African Americans to Kansas. From 1877 to 1879, he and his associates led several hundred migrants.
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 http://www.inmotionaame.org/gallery/detail.cfm?migration=6&topic=4&type=image&id=574913
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Kansas State Historical Society, Copy and Reuse Restrictions Apply
David City Colony
African Americans were attracted to Kansas because of its abolitionist roots, and they were eligible to settle there under the terms of the 1862 Homestead Act. The largest number of black settlers came to Kansas from Kentucky and Tennessee between 1877 and 1880. They became known as Exodusters. Several black settlements sprang up in Kansas. Among them were Singleton - from the name of the Exodusters' leader - in Cherokee County, Morton City in Edwards County, Hodgeman Colony and David City Colony in Hodgeman County, and Dunlap in Morris County.
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view larger imageview larger image request a copy request a copy
Kansas State Historical Society, Copy and Reuse Restrictions Apply
David City Colony
African Americans were attracted to Kansas because of its abolitionist roots, and they were eligible to settle there under the terms of the 1862 Homestead Act. The largest number of black settlers came to Kansas from Kentucky and Tennessee between 1877 and 1880. They became known as Exodusters. Several black settlements sprang up in Kansas. Among them were Singleton - from the name of the Exodusters' leader - in Cherokee County, Morton City in Edwards County, Hodgeman Colony and David City Colony in Hodgeman County, and Dunlap in Morris County.
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view larger imageview larger image request a copy request a copy
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [HABS, KANS,33-NICO,1-6]
Early Homestead in Nicodemus
During the Civil War, the African-American population of Kansas increased from just 627 in 1861 to over 12,000 in 1865. Some white Kansans expressed concern. Richard Cordley, a white abolitionist, dismissed their fears: "The negroes are not coming. They are here. They will stay here. They are American born. They have been here for more than two hundred and fifty years.... It is not for us to say whether they will be our neighbors or not.... It is only for us to say what sort of neighbors they shall be, and whether we will fulfill our neighborly obligations" Richard Cordley, Pioneer Days in Kansas (New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1903).

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Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [HABS, KANS,33-NICO,1-7]
Washington Street, Nicodemus
The first thirty settlers arrived in Nicodemus in July 1877. The following spring, another 150 joined them. The First Baptist Church, erected in 1879 under the auspices of Reverend Daniel Hickman, was a sod and dugout structure. By 1880, a one-room stone sanctuary had been added to the site. That year, 258 African Americans lived in Nicodemus, and most settlers had succeeded in planting 10 to 15 acres of wheat and corn. One resident, R.B. Scruggs, supplemented his income by driving a freight wagon and working on the railroad. His hard work enabled him to expand his original 120-acre homestead into a 720-acre farm. The first two-story building was Williams General Store, erected in 1879. It is on the right in this 1885 photograph. By 1886, the town boasted three churches, three hotels, a livery, a blacksmith, a newspaper, and a schoolhouse.

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