 Hi, I'm Jake free felt I'm here with my co-author Richard Edwards. I'm the director of the Center for Lincoln studies at the University of Illinois Springfield He is the director emeritus of the Center for Great Plains studies at the University of Nebraska. And we're here with you today to talk about our recent book. The first migrants how black homesteaders quest for land and freedom heralded America's great migration. And I just want to start by thanking the National Archives for hand having us today. We did a lot of research at the National Archives all the homestead records or all the successful homestead records at least are at the archives. So we could not have done this work without them. So the story we're going to tell today begins in September 1877. When 308 black Americans left the verdant hills around Lexington Kentucky on a perilous journey, they hoped would bring them to their promised land. They were led by Reverend Simon Roundtree, a formerly enslaved man, as well as a white land developer named W. R. Hill. Their cannon was called Kansas. The group gathered at a train station near nightfall, men, women and children carrying their household goods, leaving a few cows and horses as well. They crowded together jostling each other as they boarded the train. Agents for competing railroads bugged them to buy a ticket from their line. The travelers retired, carrying crying babies, they sat for hours. And finally at midnight, the short line train started moving, departing Lexington for Louisville. More migrants joined along the way. They shivered and tried to keep warm in the noisy train car. At Louisville, they climbed down, unloaded their worldly possessions and changed the Louisville and Indianapolis line. On they went, changing trains several more times, unloading and loading their goods as they did it. Until they finally reached their destination, Ellis, Kansas. Done with their train travel, they still had miles to go. Now these folks, you might ask yourself, why are they leaving Kentucky for Kansas? Why are they considering Kansas their promised land? Well, these folks, like a lot of Black Southerners after the Civil War, had soaring hopes. It was a time of jubilee and the reconstruction was happening. The hope was, well, now we're free. We're going to get land. But by the mid 1870s, that promise had been replaced with anguish and horror. One of the bitterest memories from reconstruction was the defeat of freed people's ability to own land in the South. Congress had created the Freedman's Bureau to help Black Southerners construct lives as freed people. The Freedman's Bureau focused on about one million acres of confiscated lands from Confederates. But in 1866, Andrew Johnson betrayed the promise of giving those lands to freedmen and pardoned most Confederates for their treason, giving the land back to the traders. This left little land for the Bureau to settle Black people on. And so, white folks and former slave owners were the ones who retained the best Southern lands. When Congress acted, I mean, in 1866, they passed the Southern Homestead Act, opening 46 million acres of public land in the states where Congress owned public land. So that's Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Open that up for homesteading. So Black Southerners could go out to those lands and claim land to try to get it for free. This was largely a failure. First, because most of those lands are timber, so you need some capital or extra laborers or be able to hire labor to clear those lands. Also, they're often harassed by white Southerners when they try to claim this Southern Homestead Act land. So avenues to become independent landowners in the South just weren't open to freed people. So some, like our folks who are leaving Kentucky, went West. When I say West, I mean that swath, that green shaded swath on the screen, the Great Plains, often referred to as flyover country or flown over country. And why were they looking West? Well, W.R. Hill, the white town developer who accompanied Reverend Roundtree to Kentucky to recruit settlers assured the settlers that Black Hansons lived as equals to whites in western Kansas. And word was out that the government would give them free land through the Homestead Act of 1862. So when the Republican Party, we're going to rewind a little bit, right, when the Republican Party grows up in the 1850s, they come together mainly to stop the extension of slavery into this green shaded area, these new territories. And their goal, what they're going to do with this land, aside from a lot of slaveholders, not to settle it, is they're going to give it away in 160 acre plots to settlers that can keep it for free. And they actually end up passing one of these Homestead Acts during the Buchanan administration in 1860 and it's vetoed by President Buchanan. But when Abraham Lincoln gets the presidency, you know, the guy behind me, always over my shoulder, the most Southerners have left Congress after secession. And so Congress waste little time, they passed the Homestead Act of 1862. And this allows, exactly what I said, you to claim 160 acres of free land, as long as you're the head of a family, 21 years old, a US citizen, or announced your intent to become a US citizen. You have to build a dwelling on the land, cultivate 10 acres, or make improvements is the shorthand plant, and reside in the land for five years. And once those five years are up, you can go back to the land office with witnesses, saying that you did all those things, and you would prove up was the term your land, you'd have you could do it. You owned it free and clear you could do anything with it that you want, take loans out against it, sell it if you wanted to, or continue to cultivate it. And this is the reason our Kentuckians are headed to Kansas, this idea of free land. The land and opportunity for equality. Now, when they descended from that train at Ellis, it was near their destination, but they still had miles to go. They had trouble finding shelter as new arrivals, they overwhelmed the small white town of Ellis. They had another problem. W. R. Hill, that white land developer has assured them that when they bought their tickets, the cost of trading their goods would be covered. And now they found out different, and they had to spend a lot of their savings paying that bill. Of course, Ellis, I say nearby nearby to a 21st century person, they had to walk 37 miles further to their destination, their promised land at Nicodemus. So they set off across the prairie. There were no roads. They follow deer trails and Buffalo Wallows. They guided themselves by compass and the few terrain features they could spot. To them, which price like endless grassland, the really alien terrain in Kansas compared to what they're used to the blue grasses and trees of Kentucky. But the thought of their destination at Nicodemus buoyed their spirits. The town site company had circulated promotional information like this poster seen here. One poster suggested that Nicodemus when they got there would be teaming with wild game horses, easily tamed horses they could put to work on their farms. The Valley had limestone to build their honest and homes and abundant firewood as well. The Valley offered excellent water in rivers and numerous springs. A handbill advertising the town site suggested the colony would have already erected houses and mercantile business. Sounds like a city rather than a small colony. A church would have already been erected as well as a post office. Once they got to this marvelous town, they could then go off and claim land to the Homestead Act. Elvira Williams, a later migrant to Nicodemus, remembered that we never owned a home of our own. So when we talked of moving into our own home, it was a happy thought. So Nicodemus would be a fine sight when they saw this bustling metropolis that was described to them in the literature. When they arrived, there were no houses, no church, no buildings whatsoever. They're rolling hills covered by endless grassland. They're particularly distressed to find no trees to supply the timber they were promised to build their homes. Even more troubling, they arrived too late to plant the crops. They were furious at Hill. They chased him to his friend's house, his sod house. He hid in the sod house for a while. One report says behind the friend's wife's skirts, he ends up escaping under a load of hay to nearby Stockton to sort of wait until cooler heads prevail. 60 migrants immediately turned around and left back to Kentucky. But 200 stayed. Why did the 200 stay? The name of the town I think supplies us with a little bit of a clue. Nicodemus isn't just an accidental name. It means something. It's likely from the song that was popular at the time, Wake Nicodemus. And I'm not going to sing because we'll lose everyone from the Zoom webinar if I start singing, but I will read just one verse. Nicodemus the slave was of African birth and was bought for a bag full of gold. He was reckoned as part of the salt of the earth, but he died years ago, very old. Plus his last sad request. So he laid him away in the trunk of an old hollow tree. Wake me up was his charge at the first break of day. Wake me up from the great Jubilee. It's a song about an enslaved person who dies and is buried, but says he will rise again at the great Jubilee when slavery is over and slavery is over. And Nicodemus is there to give the promise of the Jubilee, their birthright. Despite the desolate era area, more settlers come. And despite the impressive name, the new settlers aren't impressed with what they see at Nicodemus. This is Reverend Hickman, his wife, Williana, and him come with that second group. And is there, and Williana Hickman tells the story of what, as they're approaching Nicodemus, she's not feeling well. She's in the bed of a wagon. Here is the man, her husband start whooping and collaring, and she says, well, what's going on? And they say, there's Nicodemus. And Williana Hickman says, I looked with all the eyes I have and said, where is Nicodemus? And when they pointed to some smoke coming from homes dug into the hill, Williana Hickman said she began to weep. But again, it was about this hope of the Jubilee. So more migrants followed, and not just at Nicodemus. They founded other communities that we talked about in the book in the Great Plains. And look at the names, we already talked about Nicodemus, but we have Empire, Wyoming, Deerfield, Colorado, named because the land was so dear to them. Blackdom, New Mexico, like a kingdom of black people. In DeWitty, that doesn't seem that exciting. Until you realize later they renamed the town Audacious. These folks were settling the Great Plains because they knew they were about big business. They knew that this was their birthright, and they were there to claim free land. They knew in their bones that land was the best way to get autonomy away from the violent white authority they faced in the south. But how could our Nicodemus folks exceed in such a harsh and unwelcoming place? And for that, I'm going to kick it over to my co-author, Rick Edwards. Thank you, Jake. As noted, the migrants to Nicodemus left Kentucky and arrived in Kansas and walked to Nicodemus, arriving in September of 1877. They arrived too late to plant gardens or dig up fields for crops. The first thing they did was to try to build homes. And what they discovered was the home building materials were the ground themselves. Next slide, please. Here is a half dugout. You build this by starting by digging into the ground about three or four feet, cutting through the dense maze of prairie grass roots down about three or four feet. Then you save the sod and build up the walls above ground another three feet or so. You cap it over with a roof made of sod or any materials you can find. And that's your home. This was such a different environment, such a different climate and physical terrain from what they had seen and known in Kentucky. As Jake mentioned, the towering forests, they were gone. There was nothing to make a shadow. They found no trees to shelter them and give them comfort under. And of course, some were so discouraged that they turned around and went back, but most stayed and they tried to figure out how to make a new life in this strange and alien place. Elvira Williams, one of the people who came in the second group, said, it was such an unusual place. There was nothing to arrest the site. And my eyes ached from looking so far and seeing nothing. Because they arrived so late in the year, they couldn't grow any crops. And so they had to live on the meager supplies that they had brought with them. They built their homes as dugouts. Next slide, please. Jenny Fletcher, the woman on the right here, opened the school in her dugout and had between 15 and 45 students crammed in to her little dugout. ZT Fletcher, the man on the left here, and Jenny's husband went off to Wichita to work. Because all of the migrants, including the Fletchers, desperately needed cash to buy the things, the supplies, and other things that they needed to purchase. So he went off to Wichita to work and he sent money back to Jenny. The problem was that Jenny had no place to spend the money. There were no stores. There were no vendors. There were no people wanting to sell supplies or blankets or warm winter jackets, except up in Ellis, 37 miles away. And in winter, deep snows and the frigid cold prevented people from traveling to Ellis to get supplies. So Jenny and many of the other women stayed in Nicodemus during that first winter, men off working in the cities, not all of them, but some of them. And they nearly starved. They had come to Kentucky, to Kansas, fearing wild animals, hostile Indians, and probably malicious whites. Well, they didn't have any wild animals to contend with. And during the time of famine that first winter, some Osage and Potawatomi Indians traveled past on their way back to their homelands from their annual hunt in the mountains. They saw how desperate the colony was, the residents were. And they gave them meat, maybe as much as half of their annual hunt, which allowed the colony to survive that first winter. So the hostile Indians that they feared turned out to be good-hearted neighbors. By 1880, the community had put down roots, both figuratively and actually. Elvira Williams remembered how her husband Thornton had spaded up a small garden the first summer. And every year he spaded up more land and pretty soon he had a field instead of a garden to tend to. Next slide, please. This is the Mitchell family on their homestead. This is the early 1880s. You can see that they now have a frame house, not a dugout. There is farm equipment. You can see the wheels in the background, the farm wagons and other equipment back there. They have a couple of horses, they have outbuildings, and they themselves look like they are healthy and prospering. The town of Nicodemus also developed. Of course, most people lived on the land because they had made this arduous and dangerous migration in order to own land, not to live in town. But some people lived in town and during these years the town gained a post office, a general store, generally out of everything store, disgruntled customer sometimes called it. Two stables, a couple of hotels, really just small sod buildings with an extra room attached. Other businesses, a church and a schoolhouse. The town had two newspapers. It also developed many civic and religious organizations. A literary society, a cornet band, the daughters of Zion, and many other organizations as people began to construct the civic and religious cultural life which they wanted for their community. The big celebrations in this community were the 4th of July and Emancipation Day. Here is a poster for the 52nd Emancipation Day celebration in 1939, somewhat later. And if you could read the writing on this poster, you can see that this is a big glorious event in the town life. There are games, there are races, there are food stalls, there are all sorts of things for children to have fun. There are also baseball games, boxing matches, there's platform dancing every afternoon and evening. There is a show to be put on by the Dixie Melody Entertainers and then in the evening there are celebrated orators who come to speak. This is often the highlight of the celebration. Orators who come to speak about the past troubles and oppression of black people and the glorious future of black people if they continue on the upward trend which they have recently gained. Baseball was a very fun and favorite entertainment. Here is the baseball team from Nicodemus in 1905. They were well known as a tough team to beat. They were good baseball players and it provided a great deal of satisfaction for the town and entertainment for the town. So the town of Nicodemus prospered in the 1880s. Next slide please. Here is a picture taken about 1885. In this photo we see a church in the background, the Williams General merchandise store. We see a bunch of people gathered on the street of Nicodemus probably for a Saturday market day visit to town from their homesteads. But the homesteading venture, this risky endeavor which they undertook and which they worked so hard on, struggled so long for, was not just about getting a farm and developing their own family's financial prosperity. It was also about freedom. An essential aspect of life in Nicodemus was the sense that people were free, free from the oppression, the pervasive violence, the damaged and limited aspirations allowed in the south. And these people could make their own decisions about how the town would be governed, about what they would do in their own lives and they exalted in it. One important area of freedom for Nicodemus and for most of the black homesteader communities was that they had control over their schools. Now in the south schools were largely controlled by white school committees or school boards that had little interest in having good schools for black children. But here they could control their own schools. This goes back to slave days when under slavery and slave people were prohibited from learning how to read and write. They were, people in Nicodemus were reminded of that almost every day because Reverend Roundtree, remember him, he was the leader of the first group out of Kentucky to come to Nicodemus. Reverend Roundtree when he was a boy and enslaved wanted to learn how to read and write and his owner's young son was teaching him. The owner discovered the two boys and was outraged and as punishment branded the cheek of Reverend Roundtree. Ever after Reverend Roundtree carried a scar on his cheek that reminded everyone how precious education was. In Nicodemus and in other black communities control over the schools was a precious part of freedom and of their aspirations for the future. Now unfortunately for Nicodemus, for the town of Nicodemus, it like other Great Plains towns depended on obtaining two things to ensure its survival. One was becoming the county seat. If a town became the county seat it got the courthouse. It got the business that brought people to the town. It created lots of businesses and jobs around the courthouse. Unfortunately Nicodemus lost the county election to become the county seat. The second thing they needed was a connection to the national rail network. They needed the rail line to come through Nicodemus so that they could bring in the supplies and farm equipment and other things they needed to purchase and send out the crops they grew to national markets. And after a time during which the railroads dangled the lure of a railroad connection before the town leaders in Nicodemus, the railroads decided on other routes and Nicodemus was left without a rail connection. So Nicodemus the town rapidly deteriorated during the 1890s. It declined as businesses moved out and moved to places that either had the county seat or a rail connection. And especially in the hard times of the 1890s, the Great Depression of the 1890s, people left the town of Nicodemus. But the homesteaders on their farms in the lands surrounding the town stayed. They persevered through those hard times. They continued to farm and they farmed well into the 20th century. Many of them only abandoned or sold their land in the desperate times of the 1930s and the Great Depression. But Nicodemus, even today, still has descendants and residents who live in Nicodemus. Jake. Thanks, Rick for talking to us about Nicodemus. But as I mentioned before, the only action wasn't in Nicodemus. There are other settlers as well became one of their black homesteaders. And not all of them settled in one of those six communities we talked about necessarily. This photo is a photo of the Spice family from the 1880s out in Nebraska. But it has deep roots back to the 1790s when Moses Shores was born into slavery. Moses Shores and his wife, Fanny, eventually had a child named Jerry Shores or Jeremiah Shores. And the family is separated through sale. Shores remarried and had at least two more children, one of whom was Moses Spice, who is seated here on the far left of this photo in Nebraska. And Moses Spice was born in North Carolina. He remained there after emancipation. He was one of these folks like those folks in Lexington who left Nicodemus, who celebrated emancipation. It seemed like a new world was opening. And in freedom, he turned to what he knew best, and that was farming. But he got caught in the exploitative systems of sharecropping and debt peonage. Sharecropping, the land he rented from a white landowner, he would have to pay the rent for it in part of his crop. Decreasing the amount he could make selling it. He had to buy his tools at the owner's store, hampering him with increasing amounts of debt. Spice had had enough of this. He didn't know how he was going to make his fortune, acquire his own land in the south with all this debt. So one day he mentioned to his owner that I think I'm going to go west. I'm really interested in this idea of free land, and his enslaver was outraged. He said, you ought not to go, but if you do, you're going to have to leave your wife, Susan Kirk, and your children behind as collateral against your debt. But Spice had tasted quite enough of this life of debt and scratching out a living. So he hid under a pile of hay in a neighbor. We're not sure if he was white or black, but he was sympathetic. He got him out of town and he eventually made his way to Indiana where he worked several jobs trying to earn money so he could support his family once they joined him up there. Which they did through the same trick that Spice had used to get there, hid under a pile of hay. And it reunited him with his family. And then he reunited with his half brothers and brothers as well. Josiah Webb was his full brothers, half brothers, John Wesley Shores, and then Jerry Shores, who I mentioned earlier. And they all went to Nebraska in 1882 to claim homesteads. And this is one of those homesteads, right? And like the folks from Kentucky, they'd probably been shocked by this terrain. I mean, look at how far in the distance you can see compared to what they came from in North Carolina. They built their sod house behind them. I know it looks like brick, but it's Nebraska brick. It's sod. They don't need a special type of plow, which Rick mentioned, that slit holes in the soil instead of tilling it like an actual plow didn't turn it over to prepare for planting. So they set to work building their sod home in this grueling process, laying bricks of sod, cutting them small enough so they could lift them. Much like you would regular brick overlapping, you'd have to find some plank to support the roof. Notice the space home isn't a dugout, though, like the one Rick showed you that is often what folks would do early on build a half dugout because it's fewer walls you have to build. But you see, and this looks sort of bleak right to 21st century urban night, see the sod house, some bleak prairie grasses. We think, oh boy, they're living in poverty. That's, I would argue that's not the case. If you look in the background, there are horses photo bombing this photo. Perhaps put there on purpose to show them off because a horse and those carriages, the nice carriages, I don't think you can see that to the left of one of the horses. That's a statement of wealth at the time. You can use literal horsepower on the farm or as a means of conveyance that carriage costs a lot and see it behind their sod house, there is a windmill. And that means they dug a well, and that's not just any windmill to the top of the line holiday windmill, which would cost about one fourth of their crop revenue for the year. This is a family that's doing very well. And I mean, and again, to the point of us being a 21st century society for those who don't realize a windmill allows you to pump water without doing that work yourself. And this particular model was self regulated. So once the tank was full, it stopped pumping their technological early adopters this beast family. So they're doing very well themselves on their Nebraska farm, which 160 acres. I know we don't think in acres really often, but that's about I think it's about 120 American football fields. It's a lot of land. And the species have done well for themselves this land. And I mentioned they were joined by family members. This is the shores family. Jerry shores is the older looking gentlemen seated on the right. And again, to 21st century, I was like, Oh, boy, this is, this is tough. See Minerva sitting there with her infant, she might be either happy to get some time off from the farm labor or frustrated that she has to keep this child still while sitting for this photograph which takes longer than a 21st century photograph. Perhaps they're happy about this moments of mandatory rest sitting. We don't know. But like the species they have a sod house perhaps another side house not sure. There are four of them there so Minerva on the left and her husband Reverend marks, they might live in that other building that could be a barn as well though. And again you have horses in the background attached to a carriage again, showing off that well. But I think my biggest argument for them doing pretty well and then not being so depressed is a 20% re audience might see this photo is Jim shores on the right. He's injected a bit of whimsy to this photo right he's got he's got their pet dog sitting on the chair like a person made a point to hold them up like he's sitting in the chair. And the dog is cooperating with my argument of whimsy to appears to be smiling saying look, I'm a homestead or two. These are these are good times for the species insurers in Nebraska, they've made it they've gotten their free land they're away from this, this history of debt and violence in the south. And altogether the space shores family ends up with over 1500 acres in central Nebraska fertile land. And we're looking at those homesteads and these photos. Again, the 21st century add this looks bleak but I would argue the species insurers are a big success for 25 years these families prospered in Westerville Nebraska, coming parts of the broader community. And they end up. At first, not one of these larger communities I mentioned before, but they go from Western Nebraska, some of them end up going to found Empire, Wyoming, and some end up into witty Nebraska, and Charles space, a space descended ends up in Sully County, South Dakota, towards the end of his life. And so I argue the species are a successful homesteading family. But I guess the question is, what does success look like when a lot of these communities no longer exist. And I'm going to hand it off to Rick to talk to us a bit about what do we mean we think of a successful black homesteading community. And that is the question what what are we what is the history of these, what is the measure of success or failure. The common drill on this is well they tried. They tried to homestead and terrain that was not very favorable to farming, and they succeeded for a little while but basically they failed they, they went away. And the enterprise was a failure. Unfortunately for that theory, that's not how the homesteaders saw it, nor is it how the descendants of homesteaders saw this venture. They saw it in quite different terms. They saw it as providing a place or a space where the black homesteaders could rest up and recover somewhat from the trauma of life in the south. So that for a generation or so, they lived in places where they controlled their own fates, at least to the extent that humans control our fates, made their own decisions and succeeded. Joyce Joyce Ann Gray, one of the descendants of the witty Nebraska said, what black homesteaders most wanted was the peace to make a living piece to educate their children, peace to sit out on their porches and look over their land with confidence that it was truly theirs. No, knowing that no one was coming over the next null to take and destroy. Angela Bates, a descendant of Nicodemus and historian of that community said, Nicodemus was a place they could enjoy true freedom. So in the first instance, the homesteaders found these communities to be places where they could control the main events of their own lives. Second thing I would say is that in general, they found friendly or at least indifferent white neighbors. Now this was a time in our country, a terrible time in our country, when racism was on the rise nationally. This was a time when people were putting up statues to Confederate heroes all across the south and some places in the north as well. This is a time when Jim Crow laws were being passed, when violence was endemic in the south. This is a time when lynching reached its peak. So in general in the country, this is a time of growing and vicious racism. And of course in 1921, there was the Tulsa massacre, which killed hundreds and destroyed the Black Wall Street. But in general, not without exception, but in general, black homesteaders found their white neighbors to be helpful or at worst indifferent. There was no barn burning, there were no mutilated cattle, there were no attempts to drive out black homesteaders. And instead in some places, DeWittie is a notable example, the white ranchers surrounding black homesteaders made an arrangement with the black homesteaders which benefited both. The black homesteaders found jobs and money that they desperately needed on the ranches and the ranchers found dependable workers much more dependable than Francians would have been. And the black homesteaders, if they didn't like the circumstances of working on the ranches, could walk away because after all, they owned land and they could work their own land. This was not without exception, empire Wyoming and black New Mexico in particular, faced hostile whites. But throughout most of this region, they found supportive white neighbors. And DeWittie in particular, they socialized together, they played baseball together, they had big feasts together after the baseball games and so on. Third, success in educating their children and grandchildren meant that the homesteaders had a different standard for what constituted success. Joyce Ann Gray again, the DeWittie descendant said, the driving force behind every plow, every nail driven, every sod wall built was with one purpose in mind, not to build a lasting farming town, but to be the stepping stone for their children. And we go back to this idea of how important education was, not only for its practical benefits, but for its link to freedom as well. And the homesteading generation in all of these communities sacrificed greatly to make sure their children and grandchildren were educated. They took some of that precious, hard-earned cash to build schools, to hire teachers, to buy books and do other things which supported education. Now, one of the ironies of this is that people who are educated as pharmacists or nurses or teachers or lawyers or doctors, generally do not return to the family farm to continue it into the future. The very success of the homesteading generation's commitment to education meant that it was unlikely that their children would return and run the farms. Next slide, please. Here is one of the DeWittie homesteaders, a young man who was a poet. He's about 16 here. He has that youthful arrogance. He's standing on his homestead showing pride in what they had accomplished. Next slide, please. Here are some people also from DeWittie. This is, I think, a remarkable photograph. At this time, people generally didn't smile for cameras. Here people are enjoying life, they're having a good time, they're smiling, and they're enjoying the benefits of what they have accomplished in DeWittie. So the real legacy of the homesteaders was not persistent or continuing farms. It was the successes of their children and grandchildren, of which there were many. Next slide, please. You remember Moses Spies, that man who hid under a load of hay to escape debt peonage in North Carolina, moved to Nebraska. The woman in the center of this picture is Norma Spies Owens, his granddaughter. She became a nurse, then she wanted to get a baccalaureate, so she did that. She decided to get a doctorate in nursing, and she did that, and she became a professor at New York University. She's surrounded here by international students who have come to study with her. She did research at the Sloan Kettering Memorial Cancer Center. So in two generations, from hiding under a load of hay to becoming a world-renowned cancer researcher, once the restraints on talent had been removed, Norma Spies Owens shows the possibilities. Today, nothing remains at most of the places, most of the colony sites except historical markers on the roadside. Deerfield has a couple of historic buildings and a very energetic group that is seeking to recover and restore its history. Nicodemus is a national historic site, and it has a small continuing population. Next slide, please. It has restored its historic AME church, and every year, of course, hundreds or thousands of people come back to Nicodemus to celebrate Emancipation Day. And by the way, this summer will be the 145th Emancipation Day, and everyone is invited to come to Nicodemus and celebrate with Nicodemus. 2027 will be the sesquicentennial, the 150th anniversary of the founding of Nicodemus, and there will certainly be a big celebration that year. Thank you. Next slide. Thank you for listening to us. I was muted. I'm sorry. Thanks, Rick. I was saying that we don't have any questions yet, but I want to circle back to some of the things you're talking about, particularly racial violence in the Great Plains at this time. But I also want to zoom out to violence in general, but West is a violent place during this period. There's a lot of rancher on homesteader violence going on, whether you're black or white. And I know and we experienced some of that Nicodemus where there are some ranchers who are upset that homesteaders are arriving and they run their cattle through some Nicodemus fields. They steal some Nicodemus cattle. The Nicodemus folks, right, are able to take out one of the cowboys hostage and get their cattle back. And yeah, it's interesting trying to interpret racial violence, but when you have violence between ranchers and homesteaders going on anyway, I found it instructive though that EP McCabe a couple of years after these ranchers are sort of terrorizing the Nicodemus community. If EP McCabe a Nicodemus resident, a black man is elected to statewide office as opportunity in Kansas at a time when black Americans are just fighting for the right to vote in the South. And I think it's sort of an interesting look at it sort of the violence in the Great Plains to try to parse the violence that's already there with the racial violence that might exist. I think in general, I'd like to add as well that we mentioned there are not much exists. Aside from Nicodemus, there are some buildings at Deerfield and they're trying to preserve. There are still some folks who are descendants in. In Sully County, South Dakota, who are very helpful in talking with me during this project. But I mean, do you have anything else you'd like to add Rick, we have no questions as of yet. Well, I would just say that in talking about descendants, a sort of back of the envelope calculation suggests that there are about 250,000 descendants of the black homesteaders who are alive today. That's a pretty large group and they are increasingly interested in their history, their history of ancestors who homesteaded and in places like Nicodemus and Deerfield and DeWitty. Also, we know that based on our calculations, the black homesteaders claimed about 650,000 acres of land in the Great Plains by means of homesteading. They probably also gained control of other land, additional land through purchase, leasing and other means. So the homesteaders had success in finding land that they could own and call their own. And like we said on the National Archives houses the homestead records and their excellent sources because as we mentioned the homesteading process. You had to do all these things on your homestead over five years and then go back with witnesses and that's what's in the record. What the homesteaders have been doing on their land for five years, what they've been growing, what they built, usually down to the size of the home, how many barns and corn crypts. So their excellent sources and again the National Archives, none of this would have been possible without them. There is an ironic twist to that, which is in a great triumph for the country. The homestead records, the homestead forms that people had to fill out contained no indication of race was one of the first national laws, which did not require disclosing the race of the applicant, which was a major step forward. For researchers, however, trying to study black homesteaders, it means it's very difficult in the massive files of the National Archives to figure out which homesteaders were African American, and which were white or some other race. But it's a cost we're quite happy to put up with knowing that this was a major step forward in terms of racial equality. And for anyone looking to find black homesteader files National Archives, we took the step of using heads of household, black heads of household in the census and comparing those against land records of people homesteaded through the Bureau of Land Management Records, and then verifying to see if there was a white person with the same name in the area to see if we could identify that it was indeed a black homesteader. So it was a process that we had excellent research assistance to help us with that. There's one question do land records exist for the families of these towns. I'm not sure. I mean, so, yeah, there, I mean, if you're looking for the families of the folks in these black homesteader towns yeah those are that's the stuff because I mean, because we've done, we found them. You can go to the National Archives and find those records and look at them and I believe the homestead MPS and the Homestead National Park in particular has made some of those files available for black homesteaders on their website. I hope I answered that question. Yes, those those records do exist. They're sometimes a little hard to find you have to figure out exactly who you're looking for or which parcel of land you're looking for, but they certainly are available. But we've hit our time so I just want to thank the National Archives and everyone who's viewing one more time for for joining us for this talk about our book, the first migrants. I'm sober at all fine booksellers. Thank you. Thank you.