Going West

Going West,  Black people were present in the West before the Western territories were even incorporated into the United States. The first Black residents of the West were enslaved by Native Americans or Spanish colonists. However, by the 1870s approximately 40,000 to 60,000 African Americans left the South to move out West hoping to enjoy their newfound emancipation in the vast landscape. In 1873, 300 Black Southerners became known as The Exodusters as they settled in Cherokee County, Kansas. Many remained in Kansas, but others went on to settle in areas that became Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado, Ohio, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arizona, Montana, and New Mexico.

Black Cowboys
Donning chaps, riding horseback, and wrangling cattle, Black cowboys were quintessentially Western. Historians estimate that one in four cowboys were African American. Yet they are often overlooked in the lore of the Wild Wild West. Some of the first cowboys were brought West by enslavers, but at the end of the Civil War, they became crucial in the growing cattle industry, especially in Texas, Colorado, Missouri, and Kansas. Although racism persisted, and discrimination often followed these cowboys as they herded cattle, attempted to participate in rodeos, and performed other duties, Black cowboys also reported enjoying freedom on the open range. Today, rodeos in Oklahoma and Texas, horseback riding and farming in Compton, and the Black Cowboy Parade in Oakland — to name a few — keep Black Cowboy and Cowgirl traditions alive.

Black Wall Street represented a booming Black settlement in the Western state of Oklahoma. The Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma was founded in 1906 by O.W Gurley, a wealthy African American who moved from Arkansas to Tulsa to purchase land and sell it to other African Americans. As the Black population of Tulsa grew, so did their economic and political power. At its height, Greenwood boasted banks, hotels, eateries, movie theaters, a successful school system, and posh homes.

Threatened by this successful, self-sustained community, white residents destroyed Black Wall Street by leveling businesses, murdering residents, and seizing control of the area in 1921. Survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre and their descendants are still fighting for reparations today.