Langston City Herald

November 30, 2007 
/ Contributed By: Abhinav Kaul

|Langston City Herald

The Langston City Herald

Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society

The Langston City Herald was a black newspaper based in the Oklahoma Territory but with circulation throughout the South.ย  The paper was founded and edited by Edwin and Sarah McCabe in 1890 soon after they relocated from Kansas to the Oklahoma Territory.ย  Because its readership was spread throughout Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Missouri, the Herald was vital to the black immigration to Oklahoma.

The McCabes used the Langston City Herald to promote the city of Langston that they had helped found, as a refuge from African Americans fleeing persecution in the South.ย  โ€œHer teachers are colored. Her public schools furnish through educational advantages to nearly 200 colored childrenโ€ the newspaper proclaimed to its wide readership.ย  The Herald also claimed the Oklahoma prairie was superior to the South for growing cotton, wheat, and tobacco.ย  Between 1891 and 1892 the Herald ran a column titled, โ€Come Prepared or Not at Allโ€ which called for active men and women to settle the farmland around Langston City. It warned the prospective settlers than times could be rough and to be prepared to stick it out.

The Herald promoted African American homesteading in Oklahoma Territory by arguing it was the โ€œlast chance for free homes.โ€œ One editorial boldly proclaimed: โ€œWherever you can find it go get 40, 80, or 100 acres of land and claim it as your homestead. As evidence that you do claim it, you must make some visible improvements. Drive a stake with your name on it, cut timber to lay the foundation of a house, do a little plowing or some other act that will show to others that you have occupied that piece of land.โ€ The Herald also urged that these improvements be followed by more permanent ones and that a claim was quickly filed with the land office.

The Herald urged that everyone interested in making a homestead should bring โ€œa Winchester, a frying pan, and a fifteen dollar filing fee.โ€ย  Thousands of African Americans responded to the Heraldโ€™s call.ย  By 1900 nearly 20,000 blacks had settled in Oklahoma Territory, with many of them coming to the Langston area.

About the Author

Author Profile

Abe Kaul is currently a non-matriculated student at the University of Washington. Abe graduated with a BA. in Political Science from Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon in the spring of 2007. He plans to attend law school next year.

CITE THIS ENTRY IN APA FORMAT:

Kaul, A. (2007, November 30). Langston City Herald. BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/langston-city-herald/

Source of the Author's Information:

Sources: Quintard Taylor, In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998); Kenneth Hamilton, โ€œThe Origin and Early Development of Langston, Oklahoma,โ€ Journal of Negro History, 62:12, (July 1977).

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