History of Black Towns in America
"National Overviews, Preservation, and Mapping"
The Largely Unknown Histories of Free Black Communities Across the Americas
| Mitti Hicks | Travel Noire | July 10, 2025
Overview of free Black communities that existed before and after emancipation, showing how Black people built autonomous towns, settlements, and institutions despite slavery, segregation, and racial violence.
They’re Fighting Polluters Destroying Historically Black Towns — Starting With Their Own
| Sara Sneath | The Guardian | April 14, 2024
Examines Black-founded freetowns in Louisiana’s river parishes and how descendants are fighting industrial development, land loss, and environmental injustice.
The Fight to Stop the Erasure of Historic Black Towns
| Adam Mahoney | Capital B | April 7, 2023
Reports on the survival of historic Black towns and settlements, explaining how land loss, development, and lack of recognition threaten communities founded after emancipation.
9 Historic Black Neighborhoods That Celebrate Black Excellence
| National Trust for Historic Preservation | Saving Places | October 15, 2020
Profiles historic Black neighborhoods and business districts that served as centers of Black entrepreneurship, culture, education, and civic life.
All-Black Towns
| Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture | Searchable Museum | No date
Smithsonian overview of African American towns and neighborhoods built after slavery, emphasizing land ownership, schools, churches, and independent community life.
New Philadelphia National Historic Site History
| National Park Service | National Park Service | No date
NPS history page explaining how Free Frank McWorter founded New Philadelphia and used land sales to help free family members from slavery.
Historically African-American Communities and Settlements
| Wikipedia contributors | Wikipedia | No date
Broad reference list of Black towns, freedom colonies, freedmen’s towns, and historically African American settlements across the United States.
Black Towns and Descendant-Led Preservation
| The Descendants Project | The Descendants Project | No date
The Descendants Project shows how descendants of Black towns and freetowns are leading preservation, land defense, and environmental justice work.
"Oklahoma All-Black Towns"
Boley, Oklahoma
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Boley, one of Oklahoma’s most famous All-Black towns and a center of Black business, education, agriculture, and political ambition.
Boley
| Larry O’Dell | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture | No date
Oklahoma historical entry on Boley, founded in the Creek Nation and promoted as a model All-Black town with banks, schools, newspapers, churches, and civic institutions.
Town of Boley History
| Town of Boley | Town of Boley | No date
Local history page describing Boley’s founding, Black self-government, business growth, and continuing identity as one of Oklahoma’s surviving historic Black towns.
Boley Historic District
| National Park Service | National Register of Historic Places | No date
National Register research resource useful for locating documentation on the Boley Historic District and other historic Black towns listed for preservation.
Langston, Oklahoma
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Langston, Oklahoma, a Black-founded town closely tied to Black political organizing and the creation of Langston University.
Langston
| Larry O’Dell | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture | No date
Oklahoma history entry on Langston, its founding, its connection to Edward P. McCabe, and its role in Black education and political aspirations.
Langston University History
| Langston University | Langston University | No date
University history page connecting Langston’s development to Oklahoma’s Black settlement movement and the founding of the state’s historically Black college.
Rentiesville, Oklahoma
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Rentiesville, an Oklahoma All-Black town known for its connection to educator and historian John Hope Franklin and its survival as a historic Black community.
Rentiesville
| Linda Gray | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture | No date
Oklahoma history entry on Rentiesville, including its development as a Black town in Indian Territory and its later cultural significance.
Clearview, Oklahoma
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Clearview, one of Oklahoma’s surviving All-Black towns, founded during the early twentieth century as part of a broader Black settlement movement.
Clearview
| Linda Gray | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture | No date
Encyclopedia entry on Clearview’s origins, population, railroad connection, schools, churches, and continuing status as a historic Black town.
Taft, Oklahoma
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Taft, an Oklahoma All-Black town known for its schools, civic institutions, and long African American community life.
Taft
| Linda Gray | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture | No date
Oklahoma history entry describing Taft’s development from a freedmen’s community into one of the state’s historic Black towns.
Tullahassee, Oklahoma
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Tullahassee, one of the oldest Black towns in Oklahoma, with roots in Creek freedmen communities and African American education.
Tullahassee
| Linda Gray | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture | No date
Encyclopedia entry on Tullahassee’s origins, freedmen population, school history, and role among Oklahoma’s surviving All-Black towns.
Red Bird, Oklahoma
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Red Bird, a Black town founded in Indian Territory that developed schools, churches, and community institutions before population decline.
Red Bird
| Larry O’Dell | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture | No date
Oklahoma history entry on Red Bird, one of the state’s All-Black towns founded during the era of Black migration and self-governance.
Grayson, Oklahoma
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Grayson, an Oklahoma All-Black town founded by African Americans seeking political independence, land ownership, and community security.
Grayson
| Linda Gray | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture | No date
Historical entry describing Grayson’s founding, schools, churches, economy, and place among Oklahoma’s historic Black communities.
Summit, Oklahoma
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Summit, one of Oklahoma’s Black-founded communities that grew during the era of African American land settlement in Indian Territory.
Vernon, Oklahoma
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Vernon, an Oklahoma All-Black town founded in the early twentieth century as African Americans built rural communities around land, churches, and schools.
Lima, Oklahoma
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Lima, an All-Black Oklahoma town whose history reflects both the promise and fragility of Black agricultural communities.
Tatums, Oklahoma
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Tatums, a Black-founded Oklahoma town linked to migration, farming, oil development, and the cultural memory of all-Black municipalities.
Tatums
| Linda Gray | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture | No date
Oklahoma encyclopedia entry on Tatums, including its founding, economic changes, and continued identity as a historic Black town.
Brooksville, Oklahoma
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Brooksville, an All-Black town in Oklahoma that formed as African American settlers built independent rural communities after emancipation.
The Black Town Movement in Oklahoma
| Hannibal B. Johnson | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture | No date
Context article on why Oklahoma became the center of the All-Black town movement, with communities formed around schools, churches, farming, newspapers, and business districts.
Edward P. McCabe
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Biography of Edward P. McCabe, a Black political leader who promoted Oklahoma as a place where African Americans could build towns and political power.
Oklahoma’s Black Towns and Self-Government
| The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture | Oklahoma Historical Society | No date
Historical context on Black political leadership in Oklahoma and the campaign for Black settlement, towns, and representation.
All-Black Towns and the Fight for Survival
| Zlatica Hoke | Voice of America / YouTube | No date
Video report on Oklahoma’s historic All-Black towns and the struggle to preserve their memory and community life.
"Texas Freedom Colonies and Black Settlements"
The Texas Freedom Colonies Project
| Texas Freedom Colonies Project | Texas Freedom Colonies Project | April 6, 2023
Project documenting more than 550 historic Black settlements in Texas founded between 1865 and 1930, many of which remain unmapped or vulnerable to erasure.
The Urgent Effort to Preserve Freedom Colonies and Black Settlements
| Tatiana Walk-Morris | American Planning Association | February 14, 2022
Describes efforts to map and preserve freedom colonies, especially in Texas, where formerly enslaved African Americans created self-sufficient settlements after emancipation.
Black Placemaking in Texas
| Andrea Roberts and Mj Biazar | ResearchGate | August 2019
Academic article examining Black placemaking, oral history, and sonic memory in Texas freedom colonies.
The Legacy of Freedmen’s Settlements in Texas
| Andrea Roberts | Texas State Historical Association | No date
Overview of Texas freedmen’s settlements, explaining how formerly enslaved people created independent Black communities through land ownership, churches, schools, and mutual support.
Freedmen’s Town, Houston
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Freedmen’s Town in Houston, founded by formerly enslaved African Americans after emancipation and known for brick streets, churches, and community institutions.
Freedmen’s Town Conservancy
| Freedmen’s Town Conservancy | Freedmen’s Town Conservancy | No date
Organization working to preserve Houston’s Freedmen’s Town, its historic brick streets, buildings, and descendant community.
Freedmen’s Town Historic District
| City of Houston | City of Houston | No date
City preservation page on Freedmen’s Town Historic District and its importance as a post-emancipation Black neighborhood.
Fourth Ward and Freedmen’s Town
| Texas State Historical Association | Handbook of Texas | No date
History of Houston’s Fourth Ward, including Freedmen’s Town and its development as a major Black urban community.
Independence Heights, Houston
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Independence Heights, the first Black municipality in Texas before annexation by Houston.
Independence Heights
| Texas State Historical Association | Handbook of Texas | No date
Texas history entry on Independence Heights, founded as a Black town and later absorbed into Houston.
Independence Heights Redevelopment Council
| Independence Heights Redevelopment Council | Independence Heights Redevelopment Council | No date
Community organization preserving the history and future of Independence Heights, a historically Black town within Houston.
Tamina, Texas
| Texas State Historical Association | Handbook of Texas | No date
History of Tamina, a freedmen’s settlement north of Houston founded by formerly enslaved people and their descendants.
Tamina Community
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Tamina, Texas, a historic Black community rooted in Reconstruction-era land settlement and community resilience.
Kendleton, Texas
| Texas State Historical Association | Handbook of Texas | No date
Texas history entry on Kendleton, a freedmen’s town in Fort Bend County founded by formerly enslaved people after emancipation.
Kendleton
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Kendleton, Texas, a Black town whose history reflects Reconstruction-era landholding and community institutions.
Quakertown, Denton
| City of Denton | City of Denton | No date
City history page on Quakertown, a Black community in Denton, Texas, displaced in the 1920s to create a park.
Quakertown
| Texas State Historical Association | Handbook of Texas | No date
Handbook entry on Quakertown, describing its Black residents, businesses, churches, school, and forced removal.
Deep Ellum
| Texas State Historical Association | Handbook of Texas | No date
History of Deep Ellum, a Dallas neighborhood shaped by Black businesses, music, labor, and cultural life.
Deep Ellum: Dallas’s Historic Black and Immigrant District
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Deep Ellum as a historic Black and immigrant district known for blues, jazz, commerce, and community life.
Freedmen’s Cemetery, Dallas
| City of Dallas | City of Dallas | No date
City page on Freedman’s Cemetery, preserving evidence of Dallas’s historic Black community and freedpeople’s settlement history.
Hamilton Park, Dallas
| Texas State Historical Association | Handbook of Texas | No date
History of Hamilton Park, a planned Black community in Dallas created during segregation as African Americans faced housing exclusion.
Halls Hill, Arlington
| City of Arlington | City of Arlington | No date
City history of Halls Hill, a historically Black neighborhood formed through land ownership, churches, schools, and community survival.
Freedom Colonies in Texas
| Texas Freedom Colonies Project | ArcGIS StoryMaps | No date
Interactive mapping resource showing the location, history, and preservation challenges of Texas freedom colonies.
Freedom Colonies Atlas
| Texas Freedom Colonies Project | Texas Freedom Colonies Project | No date
Atlas resource documenting known and suspected Texas freedom colonies and helping descendants identify historic Black settlements.
Mapping Black Settlements
| Texas Freedom Colonies Project | Texas Freedom Colonies Project | No date
Research page explaining methods used to identify, map, and preserve Black settlements that have often disappeared from official records.
Freedom Colonies and Planning Justice
| Texas Freedom Colonies Project | Texas Freedom Colonies Project | No date
Policy resource on using planning, preservation, and infrastructure decisions to protect freedom colonies from displacement and erasure.
Documenting and Preserving Texas Freedom Colonies
| Texas Freedom Colonies Project | Academia.edu | No date
Project document explaining efforts to identify, document, and preserve historic Black settlements in Texas.
"Kansas, Great Plains, and Homesteading"
Nicodemus National Historic Site
| National Park Service | National Park Service | March 20, 2026
Official National Park Service page for Nicodemus, Kansas, the oldest remaining Black settlement west of the Mississippi River and a major Reconstruction-era homesteading community.
Blackdom and African American Homesteading
| National Park Service | National Park Service | No date
NPS overview of African American homesteaders, placing towns like Nicodemus, Dearfield, and Blackdom within the broader western land movement.
African American Homesteaders in the Great Plains
| National Park Service | National Park Service | No date
NPS article explaining how Black families used the Homestead Act to build farms, towns, and freedom communities across the Plains.
History of Nicodemus, Kansas
| Nicodemus Homecoming Emancipation Celebration | Nicodemus Homecoming | No date
Community history of Nicodemus, founded by formerly enslaved African Americans from Kentucky who moved to Kansas to build a town of their own.
Nicodemus National Historic Site
| Trust for Public Land | Trust for Public Land | No date
Describes land-protection work at Nicodemus and the importance of preserving one of the nation’s most significant Black homesteading settlements.
Nicodemus, Kansas
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Historical entry on Nicodemus, founded in 1877 by Black migrants from Kentucky as part of the Exoduster movement and post-Reconstruction Black settlement in the West.
Nicodemus National Historic Site
| Kansas Historical Society | Kansas Historical Society | No date
Kansas history resource on Nicodemus and its role as a surviving Black pioneer town connected to homesteading, migration, and Reconstruction-era freedom dreams.
Nicodemus: The Oldest and Only Remaining Black Settlement West of the Mississippi
| National Park Service | National Park Service | No date
National Park Service history page explaining Nicodemus’s origins, buildings, settlers, and preservation as a symbol of African American western migration.
Exodusters
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on the Exoduster migration, when thousands of African Americans left the South for Kansas and other western places in search of land, safety, and freedom.
The Exodusters
| Kansas Historical Society | Kansapedia | No date
Kansas history article on Black migrants who moved west after Reconstruction, helping create communities such as Nicodemus.
Black Pioneers and the Settlement of the American West
| National Park Service | National Park Service | No date
National Park Service resource on Black western migration, including homesteaders, town founders, and communities that challenged white frontier mythology.
Black Towns and the Homestead Act
| National Park Service | National Park Service | No date
National Park Service resource connecting Black town-building to federal land policy, western migration, and the pursuit of independence after slavery.
"Mississippi Delta and Gulf Coast Communities"
Mound Bayou and the Promise of Black Self-Government
| Reuters Staff | Reuters | October 26, 2024
Civil rights anniversary article featuring Mound Bayou residents and showing how the town provided refuge and opportunity under Jim Crow.
Turkey Creek Community Historic District
| National Trust for Historic Preservation | Saving Places | No date
Preservation profile of Turkey Creek, Mississippi, a historic Black community threatened by development, flooding, pollution, and displacement.
Mound Bayou, Mississippi
| City of Mound Bayou | City of Mound Bayou | No date
Official town history of Mound Bayou, founded in the Mississippi Delta as a self-governing Black community built around land ownership, business, and civic independence.
Mound Bayou, Mississippi
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Mound Bayou, founded by Isaiah T. Montgomery and Benjamin Green as one of the most important Black towns in the post-Reconstruction South.
Mound Bayou
| Mississippi Encyclopedia | Mississippi Encyclopedia | No date
Encyclopedia entry on Mound Bayou’s founding, growth, institutions, civil rights history, and reputation as a model Black municipality.
Mound Bayou Museum of African American Culture and History
| Mississippi Delta Tourism Association | Mississippi Delta Tourism | No date
Tourism and preservation resource highlighting Mound Bayou’s museum and its role in preserving the history of Black self-determination in the Delta.
Turkey Creek, Mississippi
| Turkey Creek Community Initiatives | Turkey Creek Community Initiatives | No date
Community organization preserving Turkey Creek, a Gulf Coast Black settlement founded by formerly enslaved people after the Civil War.
Turkey Creek, Gulfport
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Turkey Creek, founded by formerly enslaved African Americans who purchased land after emancipation and built a lasting community.
"Florida Black Towns and Communities"
Rosewood, Florida
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Rosewood, a Black Florida community destroyed by white mob violence in 1923, showing how racial terrorism erased Black towns.
Eatonville, Florida
| Zinn Education Project | Zinn Education Project | August 15
Teaching resource on Eatonville’s incorporation in 1887 as the oldest Black-incorporated municipality in the United States.
The History and Legacy of Eatonville, Florida’s Pioneering African American Town
| James Madison Institute | James Madison Institute | December 6, 2017
Overview of Eatonville’s founding, its role as a Black self-governing town, and its cultural connection to Zora Neale Hurston.
Town of Eatonville History
| Town of Eatonville | Town of Eatonville | No date
Official town history describing Eatonville’s founding, incorporation, Black leadership, and continuing importance as a historic African American municipality.
Preserve the Eatonville Community
| Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community | P.E.C. | No date
Community preservation site focused on protecting Eatonville’s historic land, institutions, and cultural identity from development pressure.
Zora Neale Hurston and Eatonville
| National Park Service | National Park Service | No date
National Park Service biography linking Zora Neale Hurston’s life and writing to Eatonville, one of the most important Black towns in American literary history.
Lincolnville, Florida
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Lincolnville, a historic Black community in St. Augustine founded by freedpeople after the Civil War.
Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center
| Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center | Lincolnville Museum | No date
Museum site preserving the history of Lincolnville, St. Augustine’s Black community and a key site in civil rights history.
Fort Mose Historic State Park
| Florida State Parks | Florida State Parks | No date
Official page for Fort Mose, the first legally sanctioned free Black settlement in what became the United States.
Fort Mose
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Fort Mose, a free Black settlement near St. Augustine founded in Spanish Florida by Africans escaping British slavery.
Fort Mose Historical Society
| Fort Mose Historical Society | Fort Mose Historical Society | No date
Organization preserving the legacy of Fort Mose as an early free Black town, military community, and symbol of resistance to slavery.
Rosewood Massacre
| Florida Memory | State Library and Archives of Florida | No date
Educational resource on the Rosewood massacre, including documents and history of the Black community before its destruction.
Rosewood Heritage Foundation
| Real Rosewood Foundation | Rosewood Heritage Foundation | No date
Preservation and education site dedicated to remembering Rosewood’s Black community, the 1923 massacre, and descendants’ struggle for justice.
"California and Western Black Towns"
A Central Valley Family’s Quest to Revive a Historic Black Town Is the Work of Generations
| Felicity Barringer | Stanford / & the West | November 25, 2025
Allensworth, California, is presented as a historic Black town whose descendants are working to revive its legacy as a model of Black self-sufficiency, environmental repair, and rural economic renewal.
Promised Land: A Historically Black California Town Honors Its Proud, Painful Past
| Guy Marzorati | KQED | September 9, 2022
Explores Allensworth, California, as a Black-founded town shaped by both visionary self-determination and the long-term effects of racism, water injustice, and economic abandonment.
Dearfield: Colorado’s Black Homesteading Colony
| History Colorado | History Colorado | February 20, 2019
History Colorado article on Dearfield as a Black homesteading community that represented self-reliance, land ownership, and freedom in the American West.
The History of Allensworth, California
| Robert Mikell | BlackPast | September 28, 2017
Historical entry on Allensworth, founded in 1908 by Colonel Allen Allensworth and other Black leaders as a self-governing agricultural colony.
Blackdom
| New Mexico History | New Mexico History | July 22, 2015
History of Blackdom, New Mexico, including its founding, agricultural hopes, drought, decline, and significance in Black western settlement.
Allensworth, California
| California State Parks | California State Parks | No date
Official page for Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park, preserving the first California town founded, financed, and governed by African Americans.
Allensworth: The Only California Town Founded and Financed by Blacks
| Unique Coloring | Unique Coloring | No date
Video and historical profile explaining Allensworth’s creation as a Black-governed town and its importance in California history.
Colonel Allen Allensworth
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Biography of Colonel Allen Allensworth, the formerly enslaved minister, soldier, and educator who helped found the Black town of Allensworth, California.
Dearfield, Colorado
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Dearfield, a Black agricultural colony in Colorado founded by Oliver Toussaint Jackson as part of western Black homesteading history.
Dearfield
| Colorado Encyclopedia | Colorado Encyclopedia | No date
Encyclopedia article on Dearfield’s founding, homesteading families, economic hopes, decline during the Great Depression, and preservation efforts.
Blackdom, New Mexico
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Blackdom, a Black settlement in New Mexico founded by Frank and Ella Boyer as part of the western search for land and freedom.
"Northeast Free Black Settlements"
Weeksville Heritage Center
| Weeksville Heritage Center | Weeksville Heritage Center | No date
Preservation site for Weeksville, Brooklyn, one of the largest free Black communities in pre-Civil War America.
Weeksville
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Weeksville, founded in Brooklyn by free African Americans as a community of landowners, voters, schools, churches, and mutual aid institutions.
Historic Weeksville
| National Trust for Historic Preservation | Saving Places | No date
Preservation article on Weeksville and the effort to protect the remaining historic houses of this important nineteenth-century Black community.
Seneca Village
| Central Park Conservancy | Central Park Conservancy | No date
History of Seneca Village, a free Black and immigrant community in Manhattan destroyed to build Central Park.
Seneca Village
| New-York Historical Society | New-York Historical Society | No date
Educational resource on Seneca Village’s landowners, churches, schools, and displacement through eminent domain in the 1850s.
Seneca Village Project
| Columbia University | Columbia University | No date
Archaeology and research project documenting Seneca Village, one of New York City’s most important free Black communities before the Civil War.
Lakeview, New Jersey
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Lakeview, a nineteenth-century free Black settlement in New Jersey founded around land ownership and religious life.
Timbuctoo, New Jersey
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Timbuctoo, a free Black community in New Jersey founded by formerly enslaved and free African Americans before the Civil War.
Timbuctoo Historical Society
| Timbuctoo Historical Society | Timbuctoo Historical Society | No date
Community history organization preserving Timbuctoo, New Jersey, and its legacy as an antebellum Black landowning settlement.
Gouldtown, New Jersey
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Gouldtown, one of the oldest historically Black communities in the United States, with roots stretching back to the colonial period.
Sandy Ground, Staten Island
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Sandy Ground, a free Black community on Staten Island founded by oyster workers and landowners before the Civil War.
Sandy Ground Historical Museum
| Sandy Ground Historical Museum | Sandy Ground Historical Museum | No date
Museum preserving Sandy Ground, one of the oldest continuously inhabited free Black settlements in the United States.
The Settlement of Sandy Ground
| New York City Parks | NYC Parks | No date
City history page on Sandy Ground Woods and the free Black community that developed in Staten Island.
Weeksville and Black Land Ownership in Brooklyn
| New-York Historical Society | New-York Historical Society | No date
Article on the rediscovery of Weeksville and its importance as a free Black landowning community in nineteenth-century Brooklyn.
Cooperative Village, New York
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on a Black cooperative community connected to economic self-help and housing during the twentieth century.
"Gullah Geechee and Sea Island Communities"
Descendants Fight to Maintain Historic Black Communities
| Terry Spencer and Russ Bynum | Associated Press | December 26, 2023
Looks at preservation struggles in historic Black communities including Eatonville, Daufuskie Island, Sapelo Island, and Albina, where descendants face gentrification and development pressure.
Mitchelville Freedom Park
| Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park | Mitchelville Freedom Park | No date
Preservation site for Mitchelville on Hilton Head Island, one of the first self-governing towns of formerly enslaved people during the Civil War.
Mitchelville
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Mitchelville, established by formerly enslaved people who built schools, homes, churches, and a local government during Union occupation.
Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park History
| Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park | Mitchelville Freedom Park | No date
Site history describing Mitchelville’s development as a self-governing Black town and a major Reconstruction-era freedom experiment.
Daufuskie Island Gullah Community
| National Park Service | National Park Service | No date
NPS resource on the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, including communities where African-descended people preserved land, language, and culture.
Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor
Official corridor site documenting historic Black coastal communities from North Carolina to Florida and their African-derived cultural traditions.
Sapelo Island and Hog Hammock
| New Georgia Encyclopedia | New Georgia Encyclopedia | No date
Encyclopedia article on Sapelo Island, including Hog Hammock, one of the most important surviving Gullah Geechee communities in Georgia.
Hog Hammock
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Hog Hammock, a historic Black Gullah Geechee community on Sapelo Island threatened by development and land loss.
Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society
| Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society | SICARS | No date
Community organization preserving Gullah Geechee heritage, land, and community history on Sapelo Island.
Gullah Geechee Communities and Land Preservation
| National Trust for Historic Preservation | Saving Places | No date
Preservation article on Gullah Geechee communities facing threats from development, heirs’ property loss, and cultural erasure.
"Southern Black Towns and Municipalities"
Princeville and Climate Resilience
| Coastal Review | Coastal Review | February 2020
Article on Princeville’s efforts to survive repeated flooding while preserving its identity as one of America’s oldest Black towns.
Africatown, Alabama
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Africatown, founded by survivors of the Clotilda, the last known illegal slave ship to bring captive Africans to the United States.
Africatown Heritage House
| History Museum of Mobile | History Museum of Mobile | No date
Museum page on Africatown and the Clotilda survivors who built a community after emancipation.
Africatown Historic District
| National Trust for Historic Preservation | Saving Places | No date
Preservation profile on Africatown, Alabama, focusing on Black self-determination, environmental threats, and descendant-led preservation.
Africatown and the Clotilda
| Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture | Smithsonian | No date
Smithsonian story on the Clotilda, its survivors, and the community they created at Africatown after slavery.
Hobson City, Alabama
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Hobson City, Alabama’s first incorporated Black municipality, founded after Black residents were excluded from nearby Oxford politics.
Town of Hobson City
| Town of Hobson City | Town of Hobson City | No date
Official history of Hobson City, founded in 1899 as a Black self-governing municipality in Alabama.
Princeville, North Carolina
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Princeville, one of the oldest incorporated Black towns in the United States, founded by formerly enslaved people after the Civil War.
Princeville
| North Carolina Encyclopedia | NCpedia | No date
Encyclopedia entry on Princeville’s founding by freedpeople, its incorporation, and repeated flood threats to the historic Black town.
Town of Princeville History
| Town of Princeville | Town of Princeville | No date
Local history of Princeville as a Black-founded town rooted in emancipation, land ownership, and community survival along the Tar River.
"Maryland and Mid-Atlantic Black Municipalities"
Parren J. Mitchell and Black Community Development in Baltimore
| Maryland State Archives | Maryland State Archives | No date
Historical resource useful for connecting Black political leadership to urban Black communities and neighborhood preservation.
North Brentwood, Maryland
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on North Brentwood, Maryland, one of the earliest incorporated African American municipalities in Prince George’s County.
North Brentwood Historical Society
| North Brentwood Historical Society | North Brentwood Historical Society | No date
Community organization preserving North Brentwood’s Black municipal history, churches, schools, and cultural life.
Highland Beach, Maryland
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Highland Beach, a Black resort town founded by Charles Remond Douglass after racial exclusion from white beaches.
Highland Beach
| Maryland Manual Online | Maryland State Archives | No date
State history page on Highland Beach, Maryland, a Black-founded town and summer community on the Chesapeake Bay.
Eagle Harbor, Maryland
| Maryland Manual Online | Maryland State Archives | No date
State history resource on Eagle Harbor, an incorporated Black resort town in Prince George’s County.
Glenarden, Maryland
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Glenarden, Maryland, a historically Black municipality shaped by land development, segregation, churches, and suburban growth.
Unionville, Maryland
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Unionville, a Black community on Maryland’s Eastern Shore founded by African American Civil War veterans and their families.
Unionville
| Maryland Historical Trust | Maryland Historical Trust | No date
Historical survey documentation on Unionville, Maryland, and its significance as a post-Civil War Black veterans’ community.
"Midwest Black Towns and Communities"
Idlewild, Michigan
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Idlewild, a Black resort community in Michigan that became a major vacation and entertainment destination during segregation.
Kinloch, Missouri
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Kinloch, one of Missouri’s oldest Black communities and later a Black city shaped by segregation, airport expansion, and displacement.
Kinloch
| Missouri Encyclopedia | Missouri Encyclopedia | No date
Historical resource on Kinloch’s development as a Black community near St. Louis and the forces that reduced its population.
Brooklyn, Illinois
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Brooklyn, Illinois, often called one of the oldest Black incorporated towns in the United States.
Brooklyn, Illinois
| State of Illinois | State of Illinois | No date
State resource recognizing Brooklyn, Illinois, as a historic Black town connected to freedom seekers and early Black self-government.
Pembroke Township
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Pembroke Township, a rural Black settlement in Illinois with roots in migration, farming, and Black landholding.
Lyles Station, Indiana
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Lyles Station, a historic Black rural settlement in Indiana founded by free African Americans and formerly enslaved migrants.
Lyles Station Historic School and Museum
| Lyles Station Historic Preservation Corporation | Lyles Station | No date
Preservation site for Lyles Station, Indiana, focused on Black settlement history, education, farming, and descendant memory.
Robbins, Illinois
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Robbins, Illinois, a Black-founded municipality near Chicago associated with aviation, labor, and Black political life.
Robbins History Museum
| Robbins History Museum | Robbins History Museum | No date
Museum preserving the history of Robbins, Illinois, a historically Black town founded during the Great Migration era.
Lincoln Heights, Ohio
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Lincoln Heights, Ohio, one of the first self-governing Black communities north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Lincoln Heights
| Ohio History Central | Ohio History Connection | No date
Ohio history entry on Lincoln Heights, a historically Black village near Cincinnati founded during the era of housing segregation.
Idlewild Historic and Cultural Center
| Idlewild Historic and Cultural Center | Idlewild Historic Museum | No date
Museum site preserving Idlewild’s history as a Black resort town, cultural center, and refuge from Jim Crow segregation.
Idlewild
| Pure Michigan | State of Michigan | No date
Tourism and history resource on Idlewild, Michigan, known as the “Black Eden” for African American vacationers and entertainers.
"Washington, D.C. Black Communities"
U Street, Washington, D.C.
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
History of Washington’s U Street corridor, a major Black cultural and business district sometimes called Black Broadway.
LeDroit Park
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on LeDroit Park, a Washington, D.C., neighborhood shaped by Black professionals, Howard University, and struggles over segregation.
Black Georgetown
| Georgetown Heritage | Georgetown Heritage | No date
History resource on Georgetown’s Black community, including enslaved labor, free Black residents, churches, schools, and neighborhood change.
Deanwood, Washington, D.C.
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Deanwood, a historic Black neighborhood in Washington, D.C., shaped by homeownership, churches, schools, and working-class community life.
"Black Neighborhoods, Business Districts, and Cultural Centers"
Tremé, New Orleans
| New Orleans & Company | New Orleans & Company | No date
Overview of Tremé, one of the oldest Black neighborhoods in the United States and a center of free people of color, music, culture, and civil rights.
Faubourg Tremé
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Historical entry on Faubourg Tremé, a New Orleans neighborhood long associated with free Black property ownership, culture, churches, and resistance.
Congo Square
| National Park Service | New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park | No date
NPS history of Congo Square, a gathering place in New Orleans tied to African cultural survival, music, market life, and Black community formation.
Tulsa’s Greenwood District
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Greenwood, the Black business district in Tulsa known as Black Wall Street before its destruction in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
Greenwood Rising
| Greenwood Rising | Greenwood Rising | No date
Museum and history center interpreting Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black entrepreneurship, the 1921 massacre, and the struggle to rebuild.
Tulsa Race Massacre
| Tulsa Historical Society and Museum | Tulsa Historical Society | No date
Historical exhibit on the destruction of Greenwood, one of the most prosperous Black communities in the United States.
The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
| Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture | Smithsonian | No date
Smithsonian overview of Greenwood’s growth, the massacre’s violence, and the long suppression of the event in public memory.
Black Wall Street and Black Town Building
| History.com Editors | History.com | No date
Explains the rise and destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, showing how Black economic districts functioned like towns within segregated cities.
Hayti, Durham
| BlackPast | BlackPast | No date
Entry on Hayti, a historic Black community in Durham, North Carolina, known for Black businesses, churches, schools, and civil rights leadership.
Hayti Heritage Center
| Hayti Heritage Center | St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation | No date
Cultural center preserving Durham’s Hayti community, one of the most important Black neighborhoods in the South.
"Destroyed or Displaced Black Communities"
Black History Month Minute: Historical Towns & Cities
| WCJB Staff | WCJB | February 12, 2025
Short overview noting that hundreds of U.S. towns and cities were founded by or named for Black people, including communities that were lost, forgotten, destroyed, or still thriving.
