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AC Phoenix, March, 1992, Page 25 A Look At History: All-Black Nicodepus, Kalsas By Dennis Farney Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal Every man was his own Moses here, searching for a personal promised land. Nicodemus was settled by ex slaves, after fleeing the nightriders and the repression of the post reconstruction South for abolitionist Kansas. It was the autumn of 1877. They had abandoned Kentucky’s bluegrass country for the raw emptiness of the Kansas prairie; they burrowed into the ground like animals and burned dried manure to keep alive. They would survive to build an improbable town in an improbable setting: all-black Nicodemus, all alone in its blackness on the high plains of western Kansas. Remains of the But can capitalizing upon a unique past secure what now seems a precarious future? On that question rests the survival of Nicodemus, the most visible remnant of a remarkable chapter of black history. Nicodemus, billed by its 19th- century promoters as “The Largest Colored Colony in America,” is fighting for its life. The town and its surrounding farms total no more than 50 people. Its stores are gone and its schools long closed. Its vacant lots are cluttered with old trucks and farm machinery. Its scattered houses could be encom passed in a few small blocks. Its only weapons are history itself - and a powerful sense of community that keeps tugging expatriates home. Sixty-two-year-old Charlesetta Bates has come home from Southern California, where she kept house for the rich and famous and once served John Wayne her apple pie. Her sister, Ernestine Van Duvall, 70, also came back from California; she made lemon pie for Walt Disney. Veryl Switzer, a running back for the 1950s Green Bay Packers, still journeys from his administrative job at Kansas State University to his farm land just outside town. There is something here that’s rare in a nation of interchangeable suburbs. It is a sense of identity and of the continuity of history. Buried on Mt. Olive’s little hilltop is Angela Bates’ great-great grand mother, America Bates. The name Financial Friend •Piedmont Insured Cash Account”" •Pass Book Savings •Money Market Savings Certificate •Individual Retirement Accounts •NOW Checking •Fixed and Adjustable Rate Home Loans • 11 Convenient Locations • Over 89 Years of Service to Nortnwest North Carolina SAVINGS AND LOAN ASSOCIATION 76 Wesf Thffcf Sf/eef, PO. Sox 275, Winston-Salem. N.C. 27102 BRANCHES. Northside Shopping Center. Parkway Piaza Shopping Center. Thryway Shopping Center. Sherwood Plaza Shopping Center. Parkview Mall Shopping Center. KernersvHfe. Boone. Noft) Vtnkesbofo, Oemmons, 291S Beynokia Rd. is appropriate, for what has unfolded here is a uniquely American story - and, argues Princeton historian Nell Irvin Painter, an overlooked one. The Western frontier had black homesteaders, black soldiers and black cowboys, Ms. Painter notes. Yet the history of the West is typically depicted as a “hyper- Anglo” experience. “The myth is that the cities were full of all these swarthy people with curly hair,” she says, “while the West was the antithesis of all that. Actually, blacks played their part in Western history. Nicodemus is an expression of black frontier hopes.” Hope was in dwindtmg supply for Southern blacks in the white backlash that followed the end of reconstruction in 1876. But an escape route was opening as America moved west with the railroads. By 1877 the frontier was here in western Kansas. That year seven speculators - six blacks and a white - incorporated this town. They named it Nicodemus for a legendary slave who managed to buy his freedom, and they fired off handbills grandly addressed to “the Colored Citizens of the United CHRIST CATHEDRAL — CHURCH OF DELIVERANCE OF THE GREATER CHURCH OF DELIVERANCE, INC. We celebrate our 3nd Anniversary as we Honor our History as a People Pastor and Founder Bishop Freddie B. Barshall 240 North Dunleigh Ave. Winston-Salem, N.C. (919) 722-6902 T Oma: NEBRASKA .MISSOURI Kaa !■ KANSAS OKIAI ®0- .States.” And they came, ■ entucky, later from 'i lississippi. By 1878, population has soar; 700, including so. iothing in their ex; repar^ the former s; azing heat, bitter cc - .v'ept grass. The first waves of were fairly well-orgai at least some finane' .’Iped plant an idea ■ spread far beyond thi: An enterprising fon ' .ad no part in the initi ....mjamin “Pap” Sin drumming up migratl so huge timt the migri called the Exoduste 'aster movement r. pitch in 1879, when ^x)ured into Kansas ■ .’our-month perioc aiouglass, the nation:: .ieplored blacks’ ab South “as Lot d ongress held wor. i'he Kansas govern voung state was >verwhelmed by ^ ultimately, the f exaggerated: The mi., away after 1880. A few Exodusters although most grav Tst from lessee and icodemus’ to nearly iC whites, rience had es for the and wind- ..iers - who cd and had ■eserves - , h quickly ,ie town, slave who ttlements, >n, began 1.0 Kansas ■ ime to be ”he Exo- id fever X) blacks s a single rederick ick leader, >ning the Sodom.” hearings, cared his :t to be iestitute. proved 'ent faded ■tiled here, lied toward Continu on Page 26
The AC Phoenix News (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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March 1, 1992, edition 1
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