In 1837, Houston, Texas was incorporated and divided into four wards. The Southeast ward was named Third Ward and over time this area became an important center of African American-owned businesses and a hub for black culture. Third Ward originally comprised the area east of … Read MoreThird Ward, Houston, Texas (1837- )
The town of Pinhook, Missouri was founded in 1927, by a group of black sharecroppers from the surrounding area. The town, about ten miles west of the main channel of the Mississippi River, took its name for a nearby ridge that resembled the tip of a pinhook. These new … Read MorePinhook, Missouri (1927-2011)
Orange Mound is an African-American neighborhood located in the southeast part of the Memphis, Tennessee. Orange Mound is the first African American community built solely by and for African Americans. Orange Mound was built on the John George Deaderick Plantation. Deaderick purchased 5,000 acres of land … Read MoreOrange Mound, Memphis (1890- )
In the article below retired California State University, Fresno historian Robert Mikell explores the history of the only all-black town created in the Golden State. He traces that history including the role of its principal founder, Colonel Allen Allensworth, from 1908. Allensworth, the first town … Read MoreThe History of Allensworth, California (1908- )
Freedmen’s Town is a nationally registered historical site. The site was originally a community located in the Fourth Ward of Houston, Texas that began in 1865 as the destination for former enslaved people from surrounding plantations in Texas and Louisiana after the Civil War. Freedmen’s … Read MoreFreedmen’s Town, Houston, Texas (1865- )
Frenchtown, a community built in 1922 in Houston, Texas, was constructed by hundreds of Creole descendants of free French, Spanish, and African people living in southwestern Louisiana in the eighteenth century. Coming to Houston for economic opportunities, they settled and created this community because of … Read MoreFrenchtown Houston, Texas (1922- )
Albina is a neighborhood located in Northeast Portland, Oregon that for most of the 20th century was home to the majority of the city’s African American population. Before it was annexed into Portland in 1891, Albina was a rapidly growing city on the east side … Read MoreAlbina, Portland, Oregon (1870- )
Fifth Ward is one of the six political districts created in Houston, Texas in the mid-nineteenth century. It was established in 1866. Over the years it has produced notable cultural and political figures. Located northeast of downtown, Fifth Ward lies north of the Buffalo Bayou, … Read MoreFifth Ward, Houston, Texas (1866- )
Hunters Point is a neighborhood of southeastern San Francisco set on a peninsula jutting into the San Francisco Bay. The neighborhood is adjacent to the site of a former naval base, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Hunters Point has become an economically underdeveloped neighborhood of … Read MoreHunters Point (San Francisco)
In the article below, Fort Worth historian Richard Selcer introduces us to the African American community which has been a presence in this city since its founding in 1849. Fort Worth, Texas’s black community has a distinctive if not unique history. Fort Worth was a … Read MoreFort Worth, Texas, Where the West and the South Meet: A Brief History of the City’s African American Community, 1849-2012
