Mound Bayou was a town that came up several times in Ryan Coogler’s original film, Sinners. (There are no spoilers here.) Twin brothers Elias and Elijah Moore, known as Stack and Smoke, discussed how Mound Bayou was their dream place to live because it was a town “Founded for us, by us.”
As previously reported, Mound Bayou is known as the “Jewel of the Delta.” Formerly enslaved people founded Mound Bayou in 1887 and later incorporated it in 1898. It is one of the oldest all-Black municipalities in the United States. Mound Bayou had successful Black schools, three cotton gins, a library, churches, and Black-owned businesses during its prime.
The town’s mention has opened the discussion about other cities and communities in the United States founded by Black people. Travel Noire has previously covered some of these communities, including Africatown in Alabama, Blackdom in New Mexico, and Allensworth in California. Here are four other towns founded by Black people to know about.
Nicodemus, Kansas
Founded in 1877, this is the oldest and only remaining Black settlement west of the Mississippi River. Six Black entrepreneurs in Topeka joined a white developer to form the Nicodemus Town Company. The seven men wanted to establish an all-Black community using the Preemption Act of 1841 and the Homestead Act of 1862.
The Preemption Act of 1841 granted “squatters” (settlers on public lands) the right to purchase up to 160 acres of government land before it was offered for public sale at a minimum price of $1.25 per acre. The Homestead Act of 1862 granted 160 acres of public land to any U.S. citizen or those who intended to become citizens who lived on and cultivated the land for five years.
The men selected land in north-central Kansas in the Solomon River valley. Nicodemus was advertised as a haven for Black migrants. At first, the men recruited more than 300 migrants from Kentucky. Within two years, roughly 700 people migrated to Nicodemus from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi.
Nicodemus provided safety from the violence experienced by many in the South. It allowed Black residents to own land, build farms and a community, educate their children, and govern their own affairs. By 1879, the town had a general store, a hotel, churches, stables, a post office, and a real estate office.
Nicodemus represents the involvement of African Americans in the homesteading movement across the Great Plains.
Rentiesville, Oklahoma
In 1903, William Rentie founded Rentiesville on 20 acres of his land and 20 acres owned by Phoebe McIntosh. It’s located in McIntosh County, just five miles north of Checotah. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, the community is one of more than fifty all-Black towns in Oklahoma, and one of thirteen that still exists.
According to the town’s website, Rentiesville’s post office opened on May 11, 1904. By this time, it was a flag stop on the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railway. Rentiesville had five businesses along Main Street, and eighty-one children were enrolled in the school.
Rentie, the town’s only lawman, arrested Garfield Walker for drunkenness and disorderly conduct in 1908. The community lost its principal founder when Walker later shot and killed Rentie in revenge. Rentiesville eventually recovered and prospered for a time, boasting a lumber store, cotton gin, and many thriving businesses.
As with many Black communities founded in the West, there was a mass exodus during the Great Depression as opportunities arose in urban cities. By the late 1930s, the population dwindled to 154 from its highest of 271 in 1940. The 1990 census reported 66 residents. A population boom occurred, with 102 residents by 2000 and 128 by 2010.
Eatonville, Florida
Incorporated in 1887, Eatonville is one of the oldest all-Black towns in the United States. While it’s not the oldest community founded, it is recognized as the first all-Black incorporated municipality. Eatonville, just seven miles north of downtown Orlando, was incorporated on August 15, 1887. It was founded by 27 Black men and served as a beacon of freedom and autonomy for Black Floridians and Southerners during Reconstruction.
Eatonville was the childhood home of author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, who is known for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Eatonville shaped Hurston’s literary work and research.
A legal battle has been brewing between the Orange County School Board and the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community. The association sued the school district for trying to sell a historic Eatonville property to a developer for homes and retail space. The association says OCPS should not be allowed to pursue further actions because of the 1951 agreement that deeded the property to the district. It included that the land could only be used for a school to educate Black children.
Freedmen’s Town in Houston
Freedmen’s Town was established in 1865 by formerly enslaved men, women, and children from surrounding plantations in Texas and Louisiana. Today, it is currently the Fourth Ward section of Houston, Texas.
According to Black Past, formerly enslaved people began migrating to Austin, Dallas, Galveston, and other Texas cities after emancipation was proclaimed in Texas on June 19, 1865. The largest migration was to Houston. African Americans built houses, churches, and brick roads that still exist in the community, although some of Houston’s downtown is built over the original community.
By 1930, Houston’s Fourth Ward housed approximately one-third of the city’s 36,000 African Americans. The community flourished with Black-owned businesses, including restaurants and jazz nightclubs. Despite Black Houstonians’ success, many Freedmen’s Town residents faced barriers in the segregated environment. They were denied access to most city services. As the downtown area expanded, parts of the district were replaced by the new City Hall, Albert Thomas Convention Center, the Gulf Freeway, and public housing projects.
Government officials promised Freedmen’s Town residents would have access to San Felipe Courts, but the project ended up being reserved for white military families. A wall was constructed between San Felipe Courts and Freedmen’s Town residents to continue racial segregation. Black residents were not allowed until 1968.
Boley, Oklahoma
Halfway between Paden and Castle in Okfuskee County, Boley is one of Oklahoma’s most well-known of the more than fifty All-Black towns and one of only thirteen still existing. Boley was founded in 1903 and incorporated in 1905.
According to the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, the weekly newspaper, “The Boley Progress,” began in 1905. The paper circulated through the South and lured many formerly enslaved people to the new town. In 1907, Boley was home to about 824 people. By 1911, there were more than 4,000 residents and thriving businesses, including two banks and three cotton gins. Booker T. Washington, founder of the National Negro Business League and the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, visited the town in 1905 and called it “the most enterprising and in many ways the most interesting of the Negro towns in the United States.”
Boley had its own electrical generating plant, water system, and ice plant. Historians add that the Masonic Grand Lodge completed a majestic Masonic Temple around 1912, which was said to be the tallest building between Okmulgee and Oklahoma City. It is also home to the oldest Black rodeo in the country.
