![]() Some, like Mayor Darryl Moore of Redbird, talked about the town’s early history. “Every night, you can go out on your porch, watch the sunset, and listen to the blues coming from the club down the street.”īut the presenters also did not shy away from addressing the troubles their communities have faced. “It’s a peaceful place to live,” Burkhalter said after her presentation. Held every Labor Day weekend, the festival is hosted by the town’s Down Home Blues Club, which dates back to the 1930s and is now owned by Selby Minner, a musician and the widow of famed guitarist D.C. Mildred Burkhalter, the mayor of Rentiesville, promoted the town’s annual Dusk ‘til Dawn Blues Festival. The community leaders talked about what makes their towns unique, whether it be historical churches or rodeos, and why people should come to visit. Coffee, which are not counted among the historically all-Black towns but have a majority Black population, also spoke. IXL, which became the 14th active all-Black town after its incorporation in 2001, was represented by Mayor Joan Partridge. ![]() ![]() During the first half of the day, mayors and councilpersons from 11 of the 13 historic all-Black towns - Boley, Brooksville, Clearview, Grayson, Langston, Lima, Redbird, Rentiesville, Taft, Tatums and Tullahassee - each spoke for 15 minutes. The Oklahoma Conference of Black Mayors organized the Aug. Over time, most of the towns lost their incorporated status, and only 13 of the original towns remain today. As the state passed Jim Crow laws and crop prices plummeted after World War I, many residents left the communities. They relied largely on agriculture as their chief revenue generator. Others, like Langston, were founded in the wake of the 1889 Land Run by Black settlers hoping to create communities free from the racial oppression they faced elsewhere.īy 1920, there were more than 50 recognized all-Black towns in Oklahoma. Most were established by Freedmen who had previously been enslaved by the tribal nations relocated to the region during the Trail of Tears. Oklahoma’s all-Black towns were founded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her address capped a conference created both to raise awareness for Oklahoma’s historic all-Black towns, and to provide the leaders of those towns with more information on government programs they can take advantage of to help their communities. I’m on my arthritic knees: Please don’t let it happen again.” “It’s your responsibility to see that know, and they can make the decision that it will never happen again. “We got schools taking out materials and not teaching what actually happened. But those who were still there listened intently as Lee, who gained fame for her decades-long effort to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, talked about the importance of preserving Black history, particularly the history of racial oppression in the United States. 20, only about two dozen remained when Lee spoke. Of the few hundred people who attended the Oklahoma Historical Society Research Center for the conference on Aug. Opal Lee, a 95-year-old known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth,” had a simple message for attendees of the first annual All-Black Towns State Conference: “We aren’t free yet.”
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