Event
Oklahoma’s All Black Towns
Fee:
Free.Repeating Event
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Type of Event
This exhibit is available anytime the Education Center is open. The Education Center hours are Monday through Friday, 8:30 A.M - 5:00 P.M., Saturday and Sunday, 9:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M.
Description
Homestead National Monument of America is pleased to host an exhibit titled “All-Black Towns of Oklahoma.” The exhibit will run through March 1st in the Homestead Education Center, courtesy of the Oklahoma History Center. After the famous Oklahoma Land Rush opened up Oklahoma to homesteading settlement, African-Americans hoped to make these lands a home for Blacks looking to escape oppression elsewhere in the United States. Oklahoma was promoted as a place to realize the American dream and achieve self-government.
We are thrilled to have the opportunity to host “All-Black Towns of Oklahoma,” and hope our visitors enjoy learning more about the important history of African-Americans in Oklahoma, and the role that Black homesteaders had in the creation of many of these towns. While they homesteaded all across the Great Plains, Oklahoma had, by far, the largest community of Black homesteaders. Preliminary research in partnership with the Center for Great Plains Studies suggests that there were as many as 1,600 Black homesteads in Oklahoma, with more than 100,000 living descendants today. From 1865 to 1920, there were more than fifty towns and settlements, many of which still exist today.
Want to learn more about the connection between African-American history and the Homestead Act? Come celebrate Black History Month with Homestead. Visit the park to see the exhibit in person. Check out the park website at nps.gov/home to learn more about the research that the monument has been doing in recent years on Black Homesteaders across the Great Plains, in partnership with the Center for Great Plains Studies. And stay tuned for an upcoming announcement about a special speaker in February.