Page 4 - Florida Sentinel 7-2-21

Column
More Black Towns In Oklahoma
he recent memorials
to the destruction of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921 raised the level of awareness about all Black towns in Okla- homa. Established after the Civil War in the Land Run of 1889 when Oklahoma opened free land to non-In- dian settlement, at least 50 all Black towns were devel- oped on free land in Okla- homa between 1889 and 1920.
Called “freedmen’s towns, or freedom towns,”
the 50 towns joined all Black towns in Texas (357), Mis- souri (5), New York (5), North Carolina (5) and other states with fewer than five all Black towns.
Today, Oklahoma is the home to more historically all Black towns (13) than any other American state. The towns were incorporated and were governed by all Black governments.
Of the 50 all Black towns established by former slaves, the 13 remaining today are: Boley,
Brooksville, Clearview, Grayson, Langston, Lima, Red Bird, Tulla- hassee, Rentiesville, Summit, Taft, Tatums and Vernon.
Boley was the largest and most renowned town and was built in Indian ter- ritory between 1907-1910. These towns served the Black farming communities. Slaves and Native Ameri- cans settled in these com- munities together at the end of the Trail of Tears, the forced migration of 60,000 Native Americans between 1830 and 1850. The tribes most affected included those west of the Mississippi – Cherokee, Chickasaw, Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Choctaw, and Seminole.
After settling in these towns, Black newspapers, banks, hotels, telephone companies, electric compa- nies, schools, and busi-
nesses were established. Advertisements in the Black newspapers encouraged other freed slaves to migrate and settle in Oklahoma.
Among the first five towns we will review are Boley, Clearview, Ren- tiesville, Brooksville, and Langston.
Boley was established along the Smith and West- ern Railway and reached a population of 5,000 citizens. Boley’s first Black-owned bank received a national charter and was visited by Booker T. Washington as a source of pride. The town also established a tele- phone and electric com- pany.
Langston was pro- moted widely by landowner E.P. McCabe, an auditor of the State of Kansas, who helped found Langston. Now the home of the Histor- ically Black College and Uni- versity (HBCU) Langston University, the town boasts a population of close to 7,000, half of whom are Langston University stu- dents.
Clearview sits along- side the same railroad as Boley and was established in 1903. It became famous for its well-known baseball team which drew audiences from all over the state. The town boasted of a brick school, 2 churches, a 2-story hotel, print shop and still houses a clothing store. Even though many of its buildings were damaged or destroyed by fire, the town
still hosts a rodeo annually on Memorial Day weekend. Sadly, many of the town’s 48 residents don’t have elec- tricity or running water.
Rentiesville was the home to noted historian, John Hope Franklin and now has a population of 100, down from as many as 400. Founded in 1903 and named for local landowner and law- man, William Rentie, Rentiesville has a popula- tion of 128. A Civil War bat- tle, the Battle of Honey Springs, was fought 1⁄2 mile from the town that became a flag stop on the Missouri- Kansas Texas Railroad.
Brooksville was origi- nally named Sewell after a doctor who owned sur- rounding land and served the residents. Founded in 1903, the name was changed to Brooksville, after the first African American in the area, A. R. Brooks, a cot- ton buyer, farmer, and post- master. The town received a Rosenwald Fund School and boasted of a railroad station, 3 hotels, 2 doctors and 2 mills.
Each of the 13 towns are in various stages of preser- vation and revitalization, and feature tours with a his- tory of the towns.
The declining cotton market and Great Depres- sion began the decline of the 50 towns, which died out, except for the remaining 13.
The remaining 8 towns will be featured in a future column. Harambe!
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