We Wants a Town: Community, Race and Culture in the Founding of Two of Oklahoma's All-Black Towns

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the founding of two of Oklahoma’s All-Black towns, Vernon and Huttonville, as a case study for the way that race and ethnicity interact in Black communities from the 1860s to the 1910s. It also examines the role that citizenship and landownership played in identity formation and expression in early Oklahoma history. The cultural differences between African Americans and African Creeks initially precluded kinship and community ties based on a shared racial identity. African Creeks did not view their experiences in the Muscogee Nation as similar enough to the experiences of African Americans in the United States to form communal bonds with incoming African American migrants. The founders of Huttonville did not advertise their town as a space for African Americans to start a new life, nor did they advertise the land as available for sale. So, African American migrants founded their own towns, like Vernon. However, as statehood approached, the racist actions of White settlers made it clear that in order to protect their access to land- which they viewed as the key to autonomy and citizenship- they would need to form inter-cultural alliances and take political action to protect their civil rights.