Stacy M.

Reikowsky

From Establishment to Disenfranchisement: All-Black Towns in Oklahoma and the Affects of Jim Crow
April 25, 2010 History 5910-The American West Research Seminar, Spring 2010 Semester Dr. Patricia Loughlin, Professor of History

By Stacy M. Reikowsky 21 Pages, Footnotes, Bibliography

Stacy M. Reikowsky

It was never intended by the Almighty that the races should be place upon social equality His [a Negros] mind is as much a slave to dictations of superiors as his body was a slave to masters who owned it before the war.1 With similar feelings toward blacks pervading countless publications across the United States, the African American plight for freedom and independence appeared nearly insurmountable. However, beginning in 1865, the establishment of all-black towns in Oklahoma ushered in a new era for African Americans in the American West and offered unprecedented opportunities for the development of stronger social, cultural, political, and economic institutions outside the white-dominated world. Black towns characterized a turning point in African American history by offering a place where previously disenfranchised black Americans could seek familial, cultural, and economic prosperity independent from the forced slave and conditionally freed institutions adhered to before the Civil War. Through their towns, blacks enjoyed the unrestricted ability to create, maintain, and cultivate the families, religion, and economies they never could before emancipation. Additionally, black towns helped minorities begin developing a personal, separate, and wholly American identification based on their new lives in their burgeoning cities. However, by 1890, ensuing Jim Crow legislation threatened the vitality of the black communities by setting into motion a series of laws with the intention of restricting interaction among various races and settlements.2 The effects of the original Jim Crow laws not only diminished various agents of mobility for blacks
1 2

Roy E. Stafford, Jim Crow Law, Daily Oklahoman, April 16, 1907. Notes, 1890, folder 8, box 2, legislative series, Elmer Thomas Collection, Carl Alberts Congressional Archives, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma.

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and harmed the progression of the all-black towns, but also created multiple basic human and civil rights issues that minorities fought against for decades to come. The Jim Crow Era, in combination with the political and economic climate of the 1920s and 30s, marked the decline and eventual collapse of most all-black establishments and sparked a transition into a new form of racial oppression that limited freedom and continued growth.3 Nevertheless, through the virile communal roots created within the towns, blacks found the collective strength necessary to battle against the legal and social implications of segregation for their rights and identity as American while tension rose throughout Oklahoma and the nation. The turbulent racial, social, cultural, and political climates affected the historiographical evolution of the black experience in America. The Nordic perspective dominates much of the early historical accounts, but with one of his seminal pieces, The Tragedy of Jim Crow, published in 1923, W.E.B. Dubois established unprecedented work from the black perspective and became among the first to publicly denounce Jim Crow legislation and the resounding affects such laws placed on the development of schools. DuBois posits an equally eloquent and fiery thesis addressing the pervasive existence of segregated schools, despite integration, and the discrepancies in funding between the predominately white institutions and those remaining colored. Dubois takes his argument beyond the restrictions of educational conflicts and additionally addresses the political and legal agitation black communities continued to experience in education and work opportunities. Despite Duboiss restricted access to many of the
3

Thomas Knight, Black Towns in Oklahoma: Their Development and Survival, PhD diss., Oklahoma State University, 1975, p. 54.

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same sources and materials as his white counterparts, he nevertheless created a strong foothold in history for future authors and heralded in a new era for black historians with his argument on the lasting impressions of the Jim Crow laws. Although similar in views but differing in approach to those of DuBois, Booker T. Washington also typifies the basis upon which future African American historians build their more contemporary pieces. Both Dubois and Washington believed in the current and future progress of the African American plight and gaining freedom from the social and economic slavery Jim Crow legislation represented. However, converse to Dubois, Washington maintained a social philosophy that outlined a concept of selfreliance based on hard work coupled with a strong belief in the power of the United States Constitution and its function for the protection of blacks. Published in 1901, Washingtons childhood autobiography, Up From Slavery, represents the numerous factors that influenced his work and more diplomatic approach to African American history, while also portraying the earlier struggles of the black experience to a widespread audience. Even though many criticized him for his more conservative approach that undermined his ultimate desire for racial equality, Washingtons work still stands as a strong part of the foundation that first allowed other blacks to formally attack racism and fight against the legislative hardships that sought to keep them down long after the Emancipation Proclamation declared them free. Numerous historians built on the work that Dubois and Washington first outlined in their groundbreaking theses throughout the following decades. Within their book, To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans, published in 2000,

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Robin D.G. Kelley and Earl Lewis reflect their painstaking research and dedication to accurate scholarship by creating a profound reinterpretation of past historical analyses for black history and experience in America. Both authors utilize powerful essays by additional academics such as Colin A. Palmer, Peter H. Wood, and Daniel C. Littlefield to compile an in-depth survey of African-American history. Most importantly, Kelley and Lewis not only argue to portray black peoples place within and contributions to the social, cultural, economic and political development of the United States, but also poignantly place the struggles and achievements of black people in a larger scope of international framework. With their extensive scholarly piece, Kelley and Lewis aptly demonstrate their goal of showing how blacks saw themselves as both Americans and part of a larger, international black diaspora. To Make Our World Anew stands as both a representative of how far the field and history of African American studies have come, as well as cornerstone for continued work and expansion in the area that pushes the historiography of African-American literature into the hands and minds of future generations. In addition to the existing body of work, other scholars continue to enrich the field by addressing the various aspects of all-black town in Oklahoma. Many of the recent publications include articles, theses, dissertations, and book sources, while Hannibal B. Johnsons 2007 piece, Acres of Aspirations: The All-Black Towns in Oklahoma stands as a forerunner of the most recent academic achievement in the field. With his thesis, Johnson correlates the proliferation of more than sixty black towns with the spirit, drive, and accomplishments of the human spirit that the unique towns created.

Stacy M. Reikowsky

His work not only symbolizes a continued strengthening of the topic within the larger field, but also provides both students and scholars with a resource that deals with the social, cultural, and humanitarian aspects of the all-black town experience. The continued studies of Johnson and his colleagues help amplify and expand the field with new details into the history of the towns and the populations residing within them. The all-black towns of Oklahoma symbolize a personal and unique occurrence for the state, African Americans of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the history of the American West. From 1865 to 1920, black men and women joined to facilitate their quest for ultimate freedom by occupying, creating, and governing their own communities in the largest numbers unseen anywhere else within either the Deep South or the far western territories.4 Driven together in Indian Territory after the Civil War and subsequent emancipation, former slaves of both white owners as well as those of the Five Civilized Tribes created more than fifty discernable towns throughout present day eastern Oklahoma close to the Arkansas border,5 originally for mutual protection and extended economic security. Soon, blacks began cultivating separate social, cultural, and religious institutions from which Anglo Americans denied them access previously. Most importantly, the territories of Oklahoma embodied a promise land for long oppressed blacks and sewed the seeds of ideologies of economic independence and advancement, self-help, and racial solidarity.6
4

Hannibal B. Johnson, Acres of Aspiration: The All-Black Towns in Oklahoma, (Austin, Texas: Eakin Press, 2002), 113. 5 Oklahomas All-Black Town Map, 1920, Government Documents Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma. 6 Rhonda M. Ragsdale A Place to Call Home: A Study of the Self-Segregated Community of Tatums, Oklahoma, 1894-1970. Master of Science Thesis, University of North Texas, 2005, p. 67.

Stacy M. Reikowsky

During the mid to late nineteenth century, Oklahoma embodied virtually untouched and unexploited lands with relative distance from concentrations of white populations. Therefore, Oklahoma territories became a chief destination for migrating blacks both desiring to escape rising notions of discrimination and racism as well as seeking viable opportunities to build new independent and sustainable communities with emphasis on collective family values. The area offered the unmatched conditions essential to the vitality of a new town. Topsoil proved abundant, rich, and able to facilitate robust cotton crop yields and gave migrating blacks the freedom to establish a stable and constant source of income.7 With economic stability founded within the agricultural sector, towns grew and eventually introduced additional crops, textiles, and other marketable products outside of the discriminating eyes of their white counterparts. Under the favorable conditions that the land had to offer, African Americans quickly discovered their aptitude to live outside of the white social and economic structure and gained the confidence to thrive and expand. Additionally, all-black settlements enticed other African Americans with the advantage of being able to depend on neighbors for financial assistance and of having open markets for crops with limited reliance on the Anglo world. As such, the towns allowed for the beginnings of a cultural transformation that included the discovery of a fresh identity through their new and successful fully emancipated way of life. Many black citizens vigorously encouraged the continued growth of the community and strengthening of the emerging values. Notably, W.H. Boley and Lake
7

Survey, 1899, folder 2, box 3, Bureau of Land Management Collection, Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma.

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Moore exercised their desire to test the developing ideals of evolving black culture and governance by founding the town of Boley in 1903.8 The two prominent leaders put their ideas into action by seeding the cultural nucleus with successful grocery stores, hotels, and restaurants. They highlighted their achievements with the claim of launching not only the first black bank, but also the first black-owned telephone and electric companies. Boley and Moores hard work and willingness to push the limits of their societys developing freedom further inspired unprecedented cultural and economic growth exclusive to black communities. By 1911, the town of Boley became the largest settlement boasting a population of over 7,000 citizens and still hosts the Boley Black Rodeo.9 Boley and Moore stand as only a fractional representation of many other historical leaders who shared their aspirations in setting apart the unique foundational social, cultural, and political ideologies within all-African American towns, while simultaneously cultivating the hopes and rising expectations for future African American mobility. As individuals strengthened their resolve to fully commit to their new lifestyle, the fledgling towns shaped cohesive, flourishing farming communities that could now sustain businesses, schools, and churches, with room to grow. Budding entrepreneurs rooted in the towns started various types of business, including newspapers.10 The numerous cultural and economic achievements generated a strong sense of pride and
8

Tulsa City County Library, African American Resource Center: Boley, Online Digital Archives, http://www.tulsalibrary.org/aarc/towns/boley.php. 9 Tulsa City County Library, African American Resource Center: Boley, Online Digital Archives, http://www.tulsalibrary.org/aarc/towns/boley.php. 10 Sharon Jessee, The Contrapuntal Histography of Toni Morrisons Paradise: Unpacking the Legacies of the Kansas and Oklahoma All-Black Towns, American Studies 47 (2006): 91.

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poignant desire to share the prospects among the townspeople. In fact, many newspaper editors felt the need to extend invitations to those outside of the area and subsequently advertised throughout the South for more settlers wishing to live free from prejudice and willing to embrace a new sense of self. For example, a former Kansas state auditor and one of the founders of the town of Langston, E.P. McCabe, established the Langston City Herald. McCabe circulated the paper through traveling agents with the purpose of encouraging optimum black migration to the settlements with the hopes of building a powerful African American political block.11 Other leaders propagated a dream for the creation of Oklahoma as the first all-black state. Although the more lofty goals never came to fruition, the Oklahoma territories nevertheless rapidly solidified as a top black destination that offered many of the privileges of culture, family, and economy heretofore impossible to obtain. Black towns continually percolated and prospered throughout the Indians Territories of Oklahoma based on conditions unique to the area. Initially, when the United States government forced Native Americans to accept individual land allotments, most Indian Freedmen opted to settle on land next to their black counterparts and forge exclusively black and unified communities, identities, and interrelations. The Land Run of 1889 ignited even more African American migration, approximately 3,000, into the area with the opening of free land to non-Indians and blacks from the South raced to the newly formed Oklahoma.12 Each instance reinforced the special conditions under which Oklahoma emerged as a territory that could cater to
11 12

Norman Crockett, The Black Towns, (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1979), 34. Crockett, Black Towns, 88.

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the needs and wants of blacks after abolition. More importantly, blacks land acquisition reflected their coming together for the sole purpose of building a community completely distinctive of the white institutions that had kept any physical, emotional, or spiritual growth impossible. African Americans thrived in their towns under the banner of freedom from the prejudices, brutality, and abuses found in other racially mixed settlements throughout the South and Midwestern states. Eventually, the family structure epitomized an important emotional benefit of the black town and symbolized the nucleus of relationships within the developing class of freed citizens. Before emancipation, owners rarely permitted black slaves interaction on any meaningful level. As a result, blacks sought the emotional fulfillment of human contact and family in secret with grave consequences if caught intermingling and a social level. African Americans relished in the opportunity to freely and openly build deep familial relationship, and with the formation of exclusively black communities, they could now express their profound and long-oppressed emotional needs for family. Family structure strengthened free individuals quest for a separate identity while also contributing to the cultural and spiritual growth fundamental to the success and progression of the community through which further transformations and evolutions occurred. Despite the variety of independent triumphant ventures and emotional transcendence within the towns, many blacks remained reliant on the Anglo marketing organizations, transportation, and communications for the dissemination of their goods

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and products and therefore overall economic assurances for continued advancement.13 Because most of the towns generally stood as small agricultural centers, they provided local farmers a market, but were simultaneously dependant on railroads and white business managers to reach the larger regional and national markets that represented a maximum monetary yield for their efforts. The growth and sustainability of the economy of the black settlements prevented complete isolation from white markets and increasing interaction between the races became necessary for the survival of black communities. Integrated business relationships between blacks and whites further blurred the lines of discrimination that instigated serious conflict and created a profound distrust of whites on behalf of black citizens. Conflict renewed preexisting notions of inferiority of race and class, ultimately limiting the growth of black towns when white policy sought to restrict further immigration into the territories. White distrust also narrowed the expansion of black settlements and characterized growing sentiment for laws dictating more restrictions upon blacks and their communities. In one example, government officials in Ofuskee County attempted to block further immigration and 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."14 To further stem the black migration to eastern
13

Robin D.G. Kelley and Earl Lewis, eds, To Make Our World Anew: A History of African American, (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) 302. 14 Robert R. Weyeneth, The Architecture of Racial Segregation: The Challenges of Preserving the Problematical Past, The Public Historian 27 (2005): 43.

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Oklahoma, whites developed a similar oath to prevent the hiring of black labor and limit another avenue for economic growth and independence. Furthermore, during leaner years, whites refused to extend credit to African Americans and constructed an almost impossible situation for most black farmers and businessmen to overcome.15 As much as blacks struggled to maintain the social, cultural, political, and economic freedoms earned within their towns, whites expedited legislature that officially restricted the human and civil rights of blacks and threatened the survival of their towns. Although freed blacks managed to found and grow towns especially for African Americans against the backdrop of the first Jim Crow legislation introduced in the Oklahoma territories in 1890, tensions mounted between blacks and whites. Pressures increased on behalf of whites to instill laws that denied blacks freedom of physical and economic mobility despite full emancipation and citizenship. Without a solid or welldefined political power base, blacks were ostensibly helpless to block the negative ventures against them. Restrictive legislation regarding education and voting rights stunted political and economic expansion inside and outside of the settlements and set the precedence of inequality among white and black citizens in the territories and the nation.16 Blacks could not ignore the measures or shrink into isolation. The laws and sentiments they created affected many facets of everyday life including transportation, marriage, and education at the local, state, and national levels, while instigating a rippling effect for the coming decades in American history.

15 16

Kelley, World, 362. Melissa Stuckey, Beyond the Grandfather Clause: Black Towns and The Voting Rights Campaign in Oklahoma, Association for the Study of African American Life and History 22 (2008): 19.

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Stacy M. Reikowsky

As Oklahoma neared statehood in 1907, the president of the 1906 Constitutional Convention, Alfalfa Bill Murray encompassed the popular anti-black notion when reports quoted him to having declared that blacks would always remain bootblack, barbers, and farmers, and worthy of subordinate labor positions to whites.17 As Murray ascended into the upper echelons of western and Oklahoma politics, he took with him overt support for the intensification of the discriminatory and segregating legislation of Jim Crow at the state and national stages and exuded a powerful influence over his constituents.18 Roy E. Stafford, editor of the Daily Oklahoman, further desecrated the black image and their opportunities for complete and free citizenship in 1907, by publicly and outwardly lobbying for adoption of Jim Crow Laws in the first Oklahoma legislative session after statehood. Stafford based his justification for laws that intended to segregate and prevent black contact with whites on his religious beliefs and the pervasive ideas of black inferiority. He wrote vehemently against the mixing of the races and forcefully attacked black intelligence with the claim that African Americans lived as much a slave to superior white law and transcription as was their physical body a slave to the masters who owned them prior to emancipation. 19 Stafford bases his pejoratives on the religious implications that the Almighty never intended for social equality. Furthermore, any ideas touting an elevated black role in society proved foolish, shameful, and no good to either race.20 Murrays and Staffords views portray the increasing influence of public figures on white mentality towards blacks closely
17 18

Staff, Comes to Tell the Truth, Daily Oklahoman, September 11, 1906. Notes, 1906, folder 12, box 1, legislative series, William H. Murray Collection, Carl Alberts Congressional Archives, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma. 19 Roy E. Stafford, Jim Crow Law, Daily Oklahoman, April 16, 1907. 20 Roy E. Stafford, Jim Crow Law, Daily Oklahoman, April 16, 1907.

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around the time of statehood as well as their intentions to permanently damage the social and economic standing of blacks striving to transcend their past, widely-accepted inferior place in the American strata. Through the power of their respective positions, Murray and Stafford, among others, did not just lend their insights and influence to the public, but also shaped the future of blacks human and civil rights for the immediate and future decades and promptly negated the countless physical, emotional, and economic victories that blacks earned within their settlements.21 The Jim Crow movement infiltrated and pervaded intensely within nearly every public sphere within the infant state of Oklahoma and across the nation. The ideas propagated the notion that black citizens lived without social honor as people whose dignity had no official existence in the world and therefore not active or worthy participants in mainstream society. Therefore, added legislation swiftly extended segregation and inequality to practically everything outside of ones personal home. Jim Crow ordinances encompassed hotels, restaurants, restrooms, drinking fountains, parks, schools, libraries, saloons, telephone booths, theaters, doorways, stairways, prisons, cemeteries, and even brothels. Ubiquitous white only signs specifically annotated black restriction and stood as specific attempts to strip and deny blacks of the long-anticipated dignity and freedom after the Civil War and experienced within allblack settlements.22 Even though segregation continued to erode the human and civil rights of blacks with local, state, and federal legislation, blacks utilized the strength,
21

Article Report, 1910, folder 1, box 4, Harry Culver Collection, Carl Alberts Congressional Archives, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma. 22 Catherine M. Lewis and Richard J. Lewis, eds., Jim Crow America: A Documentary History, (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas, 2009), 286.

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moral character, and support of a community with the same beliefs and goal to begin actively building movements to fight against the discrimination, racism, and prejudices that Jim Crow represented. Increasing Jim Crow legislation and the ensuing obsession with race in the United States combined with the national economic conditions of the 1920s and 30s highlighted the end of all-black towns. As whites fought harder to segregate and afflict black through political and governmental institutions, many African Americans discovered the foreboding difficulties they faced in their mobility-limited towns and joined movements west, to settlements opening in Canada and Mexico, and even back to Africa migration. However, even with the staunch social, economic, and political hardships amplifying the volatile relationships between blacks and whites, black Americans still relied on their communal ties for the racial vigor necessary to assert their power and desire as human beings rather than simply accept the situations at hand and allow the unrelenting deterioration of their plight. The laws against black American typified a daunting battle to overcome, but popular white sentiments failed to completely overtake the profound values developed within the close knit black communities. With their collective power, blacks soon demonstrated their discontent and unwillingness to become victims and submit to complete white social, cultural, political, legislative, and economic control. Even though Jim Crow legislation altered the positive course that all-black settlements represented, African Americans proved their resiliency and determination to uphold the personal dignities and cultural transformation leading to individual

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identification that their black towns cultivated. With their establishment, black towns ushered in a new era for African Americans in the American West and offered unprecedented opportunities for the development and cultivation of stronger social, cultural, political, religious, and economic institutions outside the white-dominated world in the antebellum period. Additionally, black towns characterized a turning point in history as they provided a place where disenfranchised black citizens sought familial, cultural, and economic prosperity independent of the oppressive institutions adhered to before the Civil War. For a time, blacks took pleasure in the unrestricted ability to craft, sustain, and expand the families, religion, and economies they never could before slave abolition. Their exclusive towns helped minorities develop a personal, separate, and American identification based on their new lives in their fresh cities. However, Jim Crow legislation threatened the virility of the black communities by magnifying the conflict between the white and black social, economic, and political relationships by attempting to severely cripple interaction among the races. The effects of the original Jim Crow laws not only diminished various agents of mobility for blacks and harmed the progression of the all-black towns, but also created multiple basic human and civil rights issues that minorities fought against for decades to come. The Jim Crow Era, in combination with the political and economic climate of the 1920s and 30s, marked the decline and eventual collapse of most all-black establishments and sparked a transition into a new form of racial oppression that limited freedom and continued growth. Nevertheless, through the virile communal roots created within the towns, blacks found the collective strength necessary to battle against the legal and social implications of

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segregation for their rights and identity as American while tension rose throughout Oklahoma and the nation.

Bibliography Primary Sources

Manuscript Collections Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Oklahoma Historical Society Research Center Daniel F. Littlefield Collection Frederick Samuel Barde Collection

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John Melton Collection Norman, Oklahoma Carl Alberts Congressional Archives Elmer Thomas Collection Harry Culver Collection William H. Murray Collection Government Documents Collection Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007 prepared under the direction of The Committee on House Administration of the U.S. House of Representatives, by the Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives Oklahomas All-Black Town Map Western History Collections Bureau of Land Management Collection Morris Collection Moore Public Library Photograph Collection Digital Archives Library of Congress American Treasures of the Library of Congress Old Soldiers Never Die: Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) Oklahoma State University All-Black Towns http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/A/AL009.ht ml The United States National Archives. Education Resources on School Desegregation: School Desegregation and Civil Rights Stories: University of Oklahoma. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. http://www.archives.gov/midatlantic/education/desegregation/okl ahoma.html (accessed March 17, 2010) Online Exhibits Broussard, Albert. African American Odyssey: The Stewarts, 1853-1953. Black Past. http://www.blackpast.org (accessed February 25, 2010).

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Library of Congress. African American Odessey: Exhibition. Library of Congress. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aointro.html (accessed January 26, 2010). Thomas, Elmer. "Papers." Museum of the Great Plains. http://www.museumgreatplains.org (accessed January 20, 2010). Newspapers Online Digital Archives The Daily Oklahoman http://archive.newsok.com Tulsa World http://tulsaworld.com Microfilm Dunjee, Roscoe. The Black Dispatch (1915-1981) Oklahoma City edition. Eagleson, Willian Lewis. Langston City Herald (1891-1902) Langston City, O.T. [Oklahoma Territory]

Secondary Sources
Article Sources Godsil, Rachel D. Race Nuisance: The Politics of Law in the Jim Crow Era. Michigan Law Review 105 (2008): 505-557. Jessee, Sharon. The Contrapuntal Histography of Toni Morrisons Paradise: Unpacking the Legacies of the Kansas and Oklahoma All-Black Towns. American Studies 47 (2006): 81-112. Staff. Black Towns in the U.S. Blackfax 11 (2006): 20-46. Stuckey, Melissa. Beyond the Grandfather Clause: Black Towns and The Voting Rights Campaign in Oklahoma. Association for the Study of African American Life and History 22 (2008): 0-23. Weyeneth, Robert R. The Architecture of Racial Segregation: The Challenges of Preserving the Problematical Past. The Public Historian 27 (2005): 11-44.

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Book Sources Brown, Nikki, L.M., and Stentiford, Barry, M., eds. The Jim Crow Encyclopedia. (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2008). Crockett, Norman. The Black Towns, (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1979). Du Bois, W.E.B. The Tragedy of Jim Crow. (New York: Crisis Publishing Co., 1923). Finkelman, Paul, ed. Enclyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-First Century. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). Hobbs, Catherine L. Are You Doing Fine, Oklahoma? (Norman, Oklahoma: Mongrel Empire Press, 2008). Johnson, Hannibal B. Acres of Aspiration: The All-Black Towns in Oklahoma. (Austin, Texas: Eakin Press, 2002). Kelley, Robin D.G. and Lewis, Earl, eds. To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans. (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). Lewis, Catherine M. and Lewis, Richard J., eds. Jim Crow America: A Documentary History. (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas, 2009). Doctoral Dissertations Knight, Thomas. Black Towns in Oklahoma: Their Development and Survival. PhD diss., Oklahoma State University, 1975. Humphrey, Charles Allen. Socio-Economic Study of Six All-Black Towns in Oklahoma. PhD diss., Oklahoma State University, 1973. Ragsdale, Rhonda M. A Place to Call Home: A Study of the Self-Segregated Community of Tatums, Oklahoma, 1894-1970. Master of Science Thesis, University of North Texas, 2005.

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