Dedicated to the Continued Study and Preservation of Historically Black Towns in the United States

Rhonda Ragsdale, PhD ABD

About the Project

A few scholars such a Nell Painter, Kenneth Hamilton, and Norman Crockett have examined the historically black towns that were established after the Civil War and Reconstruction. Many historians have viewed these communities as failed experiments or insignificant in the larger picture of African American migration or U.S. history in general.  However, evidence shows that these self-segregated, autonomous towns were part of a larger social movement, which utilized migration as a resource of resistance and opportunity throughout a nadir of African American history.  Black activists and dissidents participated in a black town movement that has a continuing legacy today.  In addition, self-segregation continues to be an effective, albeit frequently short-term method of resistance to oppression.  African American southerners proved that their responses to racist conditions were varied and often defined by the resources available to them. Through these alternative means of resistance, black town residents were able to transplant their own ideas of race and southern traditions into the expanding West.

About the Author