The First Migrants recounts the largely unknown story of Black people who migrated from the South to the Great Plains between 1877 and 1920 in search of Land and freedom.
Using homestead records, diaries and letters, interviews with homesteaders\' descendants, and other sources, Edwards and Friefeld illuminate the homesteaders\' fierce determination to find freedom--and their greatest achievements and struggles for full equality..
Friefeld weave together two distinct strands: the narrative histories of the six most important Black homesteader communities and the several themes that characterize homesteaders\' shared experiences.
In this First account of the full scope of Black homesteading in the Great Plains, Richard Edwards and Jacob K.
Their Quest foreshadowed the epic movement of Black people out of the South known as the Great Migration.
In the words of one Nicodemus descendant, they found a place they could experience real freedom, though in a racist society that Freedom could never be complete.
All sought a place where they could rise by their own talents and toil, unencumbered by Black codes, repression, and violence.
Some created Black homesteader communities such as Nicodemus, Kansas, and DeWitty, Nebraska, while others, including George Washington Carver and Oscar Micheaux, homesteaded alone.
They exercised their rights under the Homestead Act to gain title to 650,000 acres, settling in all of the Great Plains states.
The First Migrants recounts the largely unknown story of Black people who migrated from the South to the Great Plains between 1877 and 1920 in search of Land and freedom
