News Release

National Park Service announces partnership with the University of Nebraska to research about Black homesteaders in Oklahoma

Date: July 29, 2021
Contact: Mark Engler, [phone]

Homestead National Historical Park News Release 

Release Date: July 29, 2021, for immediate release 

Contact: Mark Engler, [e-mail], 402-223-3514 

National Park Service announces partnership with the University of Nebraska to research about Black homesteaders in Oklahoma  

The National Park Service and University of Nebraska’s Center for Great Plains Studies will partner once again, to expand research about Black homesteaders. Working with the University of Oklahoma, they will explore the lives of Black homesteaders in Oklahoma in the turn of the century, and examine connections between land ownership, citizenship, and upward mobility for many who had recently been enslaved.  

The Homestead Act made thousands of acres available for settlement from land that the U.S. acquired from Indigenous nations through war, treaty negotiations, and allotment. The Homestead Act allowed African Americans, whites, and immigrants who were eligible for citizenship to acquire 160 acres for a nominal filing fee while making improvements over five years. African American homesteaders claimed nearly 650,000 acres of land throughout the Great Plains.  

“We are happy to work with the National Park Service to expand our research,” said University of Nebraska Project Director Mikal Brotnov Eckstrom.  “Oklahoma is a state where the histories of formerly enslaved Americans and the forced migrations of many Native Nations come together. These histories help us understand the needs and desires of those intertwined histories with that of a burgeoning nation.” 

Homestead National Historical Park in Beatrice, Nebraska, began collaborating with Dr. Richard Edwards, former director of the Center for Great Plains Studies, more than a decade ago. Dr. Edwards, a leading homesteading scholar, was principal author of the earlier study, which examined Black homesteading communities in Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, Wyoming, and South Dakota. 

“The Homesteader Project is invaluable,” said Homestead National Historical Park Superintendent Mark Engler. “Thanks to the collaborative efforts made possible by our neighboring Universities of Nebraska and Oklahoma we are adding the important history of Oklahoma, which had the largest number of homesteaders of African descent, to the research of Black homesteaders in other Great Plains states. This is an extremely important to provide opportunities for the public to connect with this lesser-known homesteading story.” 

The multi-year project will be a partnership between the University of Nebraska’s Center for Great Plains Studies and the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Kalenda Eaton, Associate Professor in the Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma, will lead the research team.  

 “I am excited to lead the Oklahoma research team and enhance initiatives sponsored by the National Park Service,” said Professor Eaton. “As we build upon and honor the prior scholarship of Black historians, educators, and genealogists, we also will not forget the experiences of those who were brought to the region or sought refuge and built lives in western America--against all odds.” 

The larger project has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the 400 Years of African American History, African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund-National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the National Park Service. 

For more information about the project visit: www.nps.gov/home.