Across North America, February is recognized as Black History Month. Although it may not be evident today, African Americans played an important role in the settling of the west.
In Wyoming, the Equality State, many former slaves found freedoms that were not granted to them in other parts of the country even after the Declaration of Independence had been signed and the Civil War was over.
Many African American men came west with the expansion of the Transcontinental Rail Road. Most of the black laborers who worked on the rail roads were employed in “rear end” jobs, according to an article by Jack Ravage for the “Encyclopedia of the Great Plains.” These men and a few women were mostly cooks and porters but some became men conductors. After the rail road boom, many black pioneers set up shop in towns near military forts or railroads sometimes going into service based businesses such as laundries, housekeeping and food preparation.
Wyoming’s schools were never segregated and here, black men could vote. In the early days following the Civil War, interracial couples found a more tolerant climate here than just about anywhere else in America. In 1870, the nation ratified the Fifteenth Amendment which guaranteed the right to vote to all men, regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” As early as 1861, if even for a short while, the Territory of Wyoming had allowed black men to vote.
William Jefferson Hardin who was married to a white woman, was elected to Wyoming’s Territorial Legislature in 1879 and again in 1882. Hardin was a barber by trade but was renowned for his skill at oration and debate, and passed several bills in Assembly.
In 1908, ex-slave families founded the town of Empire, located about thirty miles northwest of Scottsbluff, Neb.
They settled there because of liberal Wyoming school segregation laws that allowed the black settlers to form their own public school if they wanted to and even hire their own teacher. The town only lasted about a decade and by the 1920’s bad luck and drought had driven the pioneering black settlers to find new horizons.
Though their numbers were relatively few, according to Ravage, some African American families established ranches. Author Rena Delbridge writes about a black ranch hand turned mogul in an online article for “Made in Wyoming.” James Edwards, later regarded as a gentleman rancher, was a hugely successful homesteader.
Although some consider Edwards and his wife second-class citizens because of their color, neighbors of the couple considered them friends.
Edwards was such a successful businessman that he lost $30,000 during the Great Depression but barley batted an eyelash. In fact, he thrived during an economic time that saw many business and homesteads lost, regardless of the owner’s color.
In 1915, Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson, noted Black scholar and son of former slaves, founded the Association for the Study of African American Life and History Dr. Woodson initiated Black History Week, Feb. 12, 1926; and for many years, the second week of February, chosen to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, was celebrated by African Americans in the United States.
The observance of Black History Month calls our Nation’s attention to the important role African Americans have played in America’s history and in shaping the west, including the Equality State of Wyoming.
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