African Americans on the Great Plains

An Anthology

Bruce A. Glasrud, Charles A. Braithwaite

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780803226678
• eBook ISBN:
  9780803226890
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Social Sciences

Until recently, histories of the American West gave little evidence of the presence—let alone importance—of African Americans in the unfolding of the western frontier. There might have been a mention of Estevan, slavery, or the Dred Scott decision, but the rich and varied experience of African Americans on the Great Plains went largely unnoted. This book, the first of its kind, supplies that critical missing chapter in American history. Originally published over the span of twenty-five years in Great Plains Quarterly, the essays collected here describe the part African Americans played in the frontier army and as homesteaders, community builders, and activists. The authors address race relations, discrimination, and violence. They tell of the struggle for civil rights and against Jim Crow, and they examine African American cultural growth and contributions as well as economic and political aspects of black life on the Great Plains. From individuals such as "Pap" Singleton, Era Bell Thompson, Aaron Douglas, and Alphonso Trent; to incidents at Fort Hays, Brownsville, and Topeka; to defining moments in government, education, and the arts—this collection offers the first comprehensive overview of the black experience on the Plains.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Black Soldiers at Fort Hays, Kansas, 1867–1869: A Study in Civilian and Military Violence
• 2. “Pap” Singleton’s Dunlap Colony: Relief Agencies and the Failure of a Black Settlement in Eastern Kansas
• 3. Vengeance without Justice, Injustice without Retribution: The Afro-American Council’s Struggle against Racial Violence
• 4. Prelude to Brownsville: The Twenty-Fifth Infantry at Fort Niobrara, Nebraska, 1902–1906
• 5. Black Enclaves of Violence: Race and Homicide in Great Plains Cities, 1890–1920
• 6. A Socioeconomic Portrait of Prince Hall Masonry in Nebraska, 1900–1920
• 7. Diplomatic Racism: Canadian Government and Black Migration from Oklahoma, 1905–1912
• 8. “This Strange White World”: Race and Place in Era Bell Thompson’s American Daughter
• 9. The New Negro Arts and Letters Movement among Black University Students in the Midwest, 1914–1940
• 10. Great Plains Pragmatist: Aaron Douglas and the Art of Social Protest
• 11. Frompin’ in the Great Plains: Listening and Dancing to the Jazz Orchestras of Alphonso Trent, 1925–1944
• 12. Early Civil Rights Activism in Topeka, Kansas, Prior to the 1954 Brown Case
• 13. The Great Plains Sit-In Movement, 1958–1960
• 14. The Omaha Gospel Complex in Historical Perspective
• Source Acknowledgments
• Selected Bibliography
• Contributors
• Index