Millie Ringold was a gold prospector, boarding house proprietor, and long-time resident of the Yogo mining district in the Little Belt Mountains of central Montana. According to the 1900 census, Millie Ringold—whose names are variously spelled Molly, Ringo, and Ringgold—was born a slave in 1845 in Virginia. By the 1870s she … Read MoreMillie Ringold (1845-1906)
The Colored Citizen published weekly in Helena, Montana, for a little over two months during the electoral campaign season, September to November 1894. The paper proclaimed its purpose to become “the mouthpiece . . . to educate the public to a full appreciation of our [African Americans in … Read MoreThe Colored Citizen, Helena, Montana (1894)
On March 16, 1906, Joseph B. Bass printed the first issue of The Montana Plaindealer in Helena, Montana, a community that included more than 400 African Americans, or about 3% of the city’s population. Bass came to Helena a veteran newspaperman, having worked on the Topeka Plaindealer in Kansas … Read MoreThe Montana Plaindealer, Helena, Montana (1906-1911)
Taylor Emmanuel Gordon was born in 1893 in White Sulphur Springs, Montana, one of six children of a cook and a laundress. He is best known for his career as a singer in the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s. After leaving Montana in 1910 for a job in Minnesota, … Read MoreTaylor Emmanuel Gordon (1893-1971)
The Montana Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs was a voice for Montana’s African American community for half a century, from 1921 to 1972. Beginning in the late 1800s, women in the American West developed clubs and societies which helped them adjust to life far from … Read MoreMontana Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs (1921-1972)
When African American citizens founded the St. James African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Helena, Montana, in 1888, their population topped 250 people in a city of roughly 12,000 souls. Located in Helena’s eastside residential district on 114 N. Hoback, the church building rested on … Read MoreSaint James African Methodist Episcopal Church, Helena, Montana (1888- )
In July 1998, Erroll Mingo Brown became the first African American admiral in the United States Coast Guard in its 207-year history. Brown was born in Ocklawaha, Florida. He grew up in St. Petersburg and although he had planned to attend Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, his interest in engineering and … Read MoreErroll M. Brown (1950- )
Dr. John Francis is a conservationist, scholar, educator, and best-selling author. He holds a Ph.D. in Land Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has served as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador. Francis is perhaps best known for forsaking motorized vehicle transport to instead travel the country by foot, … Read MoreJohn Francis (1946- )
In 1913 the famous African American activist and educator Booker T. Washington left Tuskegee, Alabama, to begin a speaking tour around the United States. The ultimate goal of this tour was to raise funds for the Tuskegee Institute in order to educate more young African … Read MoreBooker T. Washington’s Visit to Spokane (1913)
In the following article historians Bruce Glasrud and Cary Wintz discuss their new book, The Harlem Renaissance in the American West which argues that the literary and artistic outpouring by African Americans during the third decade of the 20th Century was a national phenomenon which … Read MoreThe Harlem Renaissance in the American West
