Lilah Morton Pengra operates Multicultural Consulting Services in western South Dakota. She received her BA from Grinnell College, Iowa; masters degrees in African Studies and anthropology and a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison; and conducted post-doctoral work in medical anthropology. She and her husband designed and built an underground, passive-solar home at the edge of the Black Hills where they have lived for 30 years. Pengra became interested in local history while working as part of a grassroots network to decrease racism. She is the author of Your Values, My Values: Multicultural services in developmental disabilities (Paul Brookes Publishing, 2000), Corporals, Cooks and Cowboys: African Americans in the Black Hills and surrounding areas (Buffalo Gap, SD, 2000), Sarah Campbell: The First White Woman in the Black Hills was African American (Lune House Publishing, 2009), and co-author with Jerry Goes In Center of Recognize Our Similarities, Respect Our Differences (Lune House Publishing, 2008).
Stephen Bonga (1799-1884)
Stephen Bonga was part of a prosperous Minnesota fur trading family, the first African American residents of that state. Fluent in Native American languages, Stephen and his brothers traveled as translators and voyageurs throughout the upper Great Lakes region of the Midwest. Bonga was born … Read MoreStephen Bonga (1799-1884)