The following are short descriptions of the places which have contributed to the shaping of African American history. These encyclopedia entries serve as a starting point for much more inclusive descriptions and discussions that appear in other sources. For additional information please consult the print or website sources cited in the entry.
Fraunces Tavern at 54 Pearl Street, New York City, New York, played an important role during the American Revolution. Originally built in 1719 as a home to a New York colonial leader, it was sold at an auction to Samuel Fraunces (1722-95), a merchant of … Read MoreFraunces Tavern (1762- )
Fort Robinson, in the northwestern corner of Nebraska, was established in 1874 as a base for operations against the Northern Cheyenne and Lakota tribes. Named for Lieutenant Levi Robinson, who was killed while escorting a woodcutting party near Laramie Peak in February 1874, the fort … Read MoreFort Robinson, Nebraska (1874-1916)
Camp George Jordan was a United States Army facility established in Seattle, Washington, during World War II. It was generally known as a Black army camp, because it was segregated in such a way that the African Americans were housed on one side of the … Read MoreCamp George Jordan
On May 5, 1910 after four years of searching for a location that would accommodate two hundred families, Oliver Toussaint Jackson established Dearfield, a black agricultural colony on the arid high plains of Colorado. Jackson managed to gain the support of the Colorado chapter of … Read MoreDearfield, Colorado
In the early twentieth century Boley, Oklahoma was the largest predominantly black town in the United States. Boley was officially opened for settlement in 1903 in Creek Nation, Indian Territory along the Fort Smith and Western Railroad. The interracial group that founded Boley included Lake … Read MoreBoley, Oklahoma (1903- )
In 1877 a small village blossomed that was home to freedpeople slaves from Victoria County, Texas. Ex-slaves, Joseph Smith and George Washington, both born in Virginia, opened a freight and passenger business hauling goods from the Gulf Coast to Victoria and neighboring towns. With their … Read MoreCologne, Texas
Tom Pollock, a Flagstaff, Arizona businessman, built the Apache Lumber Company on land surrounded by the Apache Indian Reservation in northeast Arizona in 1916. Pollock named the site “Cooley,” after prominent Army scout and Arizona trailblazer, Corydon E. Cooley. Despite Pollock’s early success, his business … Read MoreMcNary, Arizona
The Oak Hill neighborhood of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, had in the first decade of the 20th Century been the residence of well-to-do white families. Over the next two decades it was transformed from the addresses of the affluent into a working class neighborhood. During the … Read MoreOak Hill, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1920-1950)
Most coal mining communities are transitory due to the demands of the mining industry. However, that was not the case with Buxton, Iowa, a coal mining colony with a large black population that grew in southern Iowa at the beginning of the 20th Century. Beginning … Read MoreBuxton, Iowa (1895-1927)
In 1924 a group of prominent Los Angeles African Americans, led by actor and real estate developer Sidney P. Dones and including Norman O. Houston, Joe and Charlotta Bass, Hattie S. Baldwin among others, bought 1,000 acres in Santa Clarita Valley forty miles north of … Read MoreEureka Villa/Val Verde, California
