African Americans have a long history of forming separate settlements and towns in what is today the United States. More than eighty black towns and settlements were established in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Prior to the Civil War, most black settlements were informally organized. Brooklyn, Illinois, founded in 1830 by runaway slaves and Quakers, was an exception to this general rule. Most black towns were formed after the Civil War and could be found all over the United States from Eatonville, Florida, to Allensworth, California. However, most of these towns were established in the Midwest and Southwest between the end of Reconstruction and World War I. During this period, often referred to as the "nadir" of African American history, many black southerners lost hope that their rights and freedoms would ever be protected in white-dominated communities. Some African Americans contemplated emigrating from the United States to escape the violence, racism, and discrimination they were forced to endure, but others attempted to form separate enclaves within the United States. Although these towns were usually very small, their citizens owned property, governed themselves, educated their children, and ran their own farms and businesses. Like other small towns, over the years black towns often struggled to remain economically viable. Most black towns lasted only a few decades, but a few continue to survive today.
Two of the oldest and longest surviving black towns in the South were Eatonville, Florida, and Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Founded in 1886 and incorporated in 1887, Eatonville was the beloved childhood home of Zora Neale Hurston. Mound Bayou was founded in 1887 by Isaiah T. Montgomery but has its roots in an antebellum slave community known as Davis Bend. Booker T. Washington was a strong supporter of Mound Bayou. Although their development and growth were curtailed by racism and limited economic opportunities, both Eatonville and Mound Bayou continue to function today.
The history of Rosewood, another Florida black town, demonstrates the extreme effects of racism that black towns could be subject to. In January 1923, a white woman from a neighboring community accused a black man of attacking her. Over a period of several days, white vigilantes sought out residents of Rosewood whom they believed aided the alleged attacker. Their attacks escalated from lynching individuals to an all-out assault on the town and its residents. As the town was torched, residents escaped to nearby swamps where they hid for days. Those who did not escape to the swamps, including the elderly and infirm, were murdered. Seventy years later the state of Florida granted reparations to the surviving victims of the riot.
One of the best known black towns in the west, Nicodemus was founded in Kansas in 1877. It was a popular destination for Exodusters, southern blacks led into Kansas by Benjamin "Pap" Singleton. Singleton, a former slave from Tennessee, helped lead a movement of 10,000 to 20,000 blacks from Louisiana and other southern states into Kansas. Although most of the migrants settled in cities, others continued on to live in Nicodemus or one of the other black colonies founded by Singleton and other African Americans in western Kansas. In 1879, at the height of the Kansas migration movement, Nicodemus had a population of about 700 people. Early settlers endured difficult conditions, including bad crops, but they held on to the belief that the railroad would come through their town and make it an economically viable place. Unfortunately, Nicodemus could not survive the decision of the Union Pacific Railroad to build away from the town, and it began to decline by 1887.
Oklahoma was home to more black towns than any other state in the nation. Some of these towns predate 1889, the year the Oklahoma Territory officially opened to non-Indian settlement. Others were founded in Indian Territory before or after Oklahoma statehood in 1907. In the early days of black settlement in Oklahoma, some blacks, led by Edward P. McCabe, lobbied to make the future state all black. McCabe was a native New Yorker, but he had moved to Kansas in 1878, been part of Nicodemus, and then was elected Kansas state auditor. Although his efforts to be appointed territorial governor of Oklahoma failed, McCabe moved to Oklahoma Territory in 1890 and founded the town of Langston, which became home to Langston University in 1897. The choice by founders to give these settlements such names as Langston, Vernon, and Bookertee, in honor of important black statesmen such as John Mercer Langston, William T. Vernon, and Booker T. Washington, reflected the inspirations and aspirations of their inhabitants.
The largest and most famous of Oklahoma’s black towns was Boley, founded in 1903 by an interracial group. Unlike many black towns, Boley had a railroad, which brought in new settlers by the carload and shipped their cotton to market. Boley and several other black towns had newspapers that were sold all over the South and used to encourage black Southerners to emigrate to them. By 1910, Boley had a population of over 1,000 with as many as 5,000 black farmers living around the town.
When Oklahoma became a state in 1907, the hopes of black townspeople came to a halt. The first law passed by the new state congress segregated public schools and public conveyances such as trains and streetcars. Then in 1910, the state passed a law that disenfranchised blacks. These laws were accompanied by an increase in violence against blacks. There were lynchings, and some towns and counties tried to run all African Americans out of their borders. In spite of these setbacks, Boley’s population remained strong until the late 1920s and 1930s, when the Great Depression forced many of its residents to head to cities in the North and West.
