While the history of African Americans in Nebraska is often viewed through the lens of Omaha and Lincoln, a vibrant and resilient history of Black life thrived across the state’s rural landscapes from the territorial period through the early 20th century. Driven by federal land acts and a desperate need for safety, Black families established independent farms, ranching operations, and entire all-Black towns. This “Black frontier” was a testament to endurance, yet it was eventually dismantled by a combination of environmental catastrophes, systemic economic isolation, and the rise of organized white supremacy. This is the history of rural Black Nebraska.

1. A Magnet for the Black Pioneers of Nebraska

The first recorded Black person in Nebraska arrived in 1804. His name was York (1770–1775 – after 1815), and he was an enslaved person who was owned by William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Traveling north along the Missouri River, he visited these specific places in the state:

• Big Nemaha River: In Richardson County, York was with the party when camped near the mouth of this river.
• Nebraska City: Helping document the flora and fauna here, York and the party camped here.
• White Catfish Camp: York did heavy labor and scouted the bluffs near Omaha.
• Council Bluff: The first tribal council happened here, and York’s appearance amazed the Otoe.
• Blackbird Hill: The men, including York, climbed this steep bluff in Thurston County to visit the mound of the famous Omaha Chief Blackbird.
• Spirit Mound: Located near Newcastle, York went with Lewis and Clark where local legends claimed it was inhabited by “little people” or spirits who killed trespassers. York and the captains climbed it anyway to survey the vast prairie.
• Ionia Volcano: In Dixon County, York and the rest of the party saw what they thought was a volcano. It was actually a chemical reaction in the bluffs.
• Old Baldy: Here York participated in the “scientific” capture of a prairie dog in Boyd County.

Other enslaved people lived throughout the early Nebraska Territory. Starting in 1810, there were Black people living in rural Douglas County at Fort Lisa, where they were enslaved as well as trappers and traders who traveled through the site. That happened from 1812 to 1820; and at another private facility nearby called Cabenné’s Trading Post (1820-1832). Military installations with enslaved Black residents in Nebraska included the Missouri Encampment in rural Douglas County (1819-1820); Fort Atkinson in Washington County (1820-1827); first Fort Kearny (1844-1848) and the second Fort Kearny (1848-1861). The Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints brought several enslaved people with them when they established Winter Quarters in present-day Florence (1846-1848) as well. Once the territory was established in 1854 several federal government employees also owned Black people.

The migration of African Americans to rural Nebraska began when the territory opened for settlement in 1854. It was not a random movement. Beginning before the Civil War was fought, the Nebraska Territory was viewed as a place to escape enslavement. In the 75 years afterwards, Black migration to the state became a calculated response to specific legislative “pull” factors and the oppressive “push” of the post-Reconstruction South.

Following are several other factors that drew Black people to move to rural Nebraska over the decades.

1.B. Homesteading

There were a lot of reasons by Black people came to Nebraska. The main reality was that they were pushed out of the South after the Reconstruction was demolished in the late 1870s. Suddenly, after the Civil War and a decade-plus of positive developments in the lives of formerly enslaved people, the rise of Jim Crow laws, voter disenfranchisement, and racial terrorism in the South made staying a matter of life or death. This made the West look like an attractive place.

The primary reason why Black people came to Nebraska specifically was homesteading. In 1862, the US Congress passed the Homestead Act giving formerly enslaved people the ability to claim 160 acres of “free” land. This represented the ultimate transition from being property to becoming property owners. In 1870, census records already showed Black populations in 22 of Nebraska’s 41 organized counties, including remote areas like Buffalo and Dawes Counties.

Later in 1904, the Kinkaid Act acted as a second wave of attraction. Seeing that 160 acres was insufficient for survival in the arid Sandhills, this act allowed settlers to claim 640 acres in western Nebraska. This specific legislation was the specific reason why DeWitty was founded, as families realized that a full square mile of land offered a legitimate chance at a legacy through cattle ranching.

This pressure of the racist South and the pull of “free” land in Nebraska didn’t just move people—it totally changed formerly enslaved people into independent Western stakeholders. For generations, this grounded the rural Nebraska Black experience in a deliberate quest for liberty and success.

1.C. Military Service, Safety, and Stability

Security for Black people leaving the South was a big deal, and in the “wild West” it felt hard to find sometimes. Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Robinson and Fort Niobrara provided a rare sense of safety, as well as economic opportunity.

The “wild West” was actually lawless in some places, and in cities like Valentine there was corruption as well. The idea of security was really important—and really hard to find. The U.S. Army’s 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry were stationed at Fort Robinson and Fort Niobrara. While they were there to fight the so-called “Indian Wars,” they actually served as a huge psychological and physical anchor for Black homesteaders. In a place where white supremacist groups were migrating West alongside settlers, the sight of Black men in Army uniforms, armed and authorized by the U.S. government, provided a rare protective shield that didn’t really exist anywhere else.

Fort Robinson had Black Army garrisons for nineteen years, longer than any other frontier fort, which allowed for the creation of long-term Black-owned saloons and businesses in the area.

Along with safety, both Fort Robinson and Fort Niobrara were economic engines, too. Black people who lived nearby started businesses to sell things to the Buffalo soldiers, whose steady paychecks were spent in local Black-owned businesses. When they were discharged, a lot of these same soldiers homesteaded near their old forts. This created a unique clusters where families to built buffer zones that were relatively stable. Extended families came from the South, the east coast, and even Canada to join them, and everyone thought the new state of Nebraska would be a safer place than the South—and they were right in many ways.

By providing both a shield against white racist violence and a steady market for goods and labor, the Buffalo Soldiers created Black rural sustainability in Nebraska for more than a generation.

1.D. Exodusters and Canadians in Nebraska

In 1879, a massive movement of Black farmers from the South happened. Famously associated with Kansas, the Exoduster movement framed Nebraska was a key destination, too. During that era, 1000s of formerly enslaved people from the South fled the South in an attempt to find less racist places to grow their newly earned freedom.

At the same time, a unique group of African Canadians—descendants of people who successfully escaped enslavers in the U.S. through the Underground Railroad—migrated back across the border and came to Nebraska. With their specialized knowledge of cold-weather farming, these Canadians brought a communal approach to settlement that they would find was vital for surviving the Great Plains in Nebraska. During the next several decades, while many Southern migrants struggled with the brutal winters and the shorter growing seasons of the Plains, these Canadian families came with specialized knowledge of cold-weather farming techniques and a deeply ingrained communal approach to survival.

Nebraska Black pioneer Isaac Riley is credited with being the first resident of the Elgin Settlement in Ontario, Canada (established for escaping slaves), and in 1880 the US Census recorded him living in Dawson County, making him one of the first Black men to come from Canada to settle there.

All of these families brought with them an indomitable spirit and a hunger for land ownership that the most of the U.S. had denied Black people since 1619.

The different cultures of the Southern Exodusters and the Canadian pioneers were cross-pollinated in central and western Nebraska, creating a new way of being that made Nebraska’s early Black settlements different from neighboring white settlements. These determined farmers, ranchers, cowboys and other western pioneers shared more than just a common ancestry; they shared a vision of self-sufficiency.

By pooling their resources and combining Southern agricultural traditions with Canadian winter-hardiness, these Nebraska settlers built the foundations for communities that defied the odds. Whether they were breaking the sod in Cherry County or building the first brickyards in Franklin County, these pioneers proved that the Nebraska dream was a Black dream, too. Working together, they forged a sophisticated understanding of the land and an unbreakable commitment to one another.

2. The Lives of Rural Black Nebraskans

These were regular rural people living regular lives under the exceptional burden of white supremacy in a harsh climate without the advantages of equity or equality.

2.A. Family Pillars of Rural Nebraska

The success of outstate Black Nebraska was built on the backs of pioneering families who viewed land ownership as the ultimate path to freedom.

• The Speese Family: After escaping from enslavement in Virginia, Moses Speese and his wife Susan moved to Seward in 1880 after facing white supremacist violence in Indiana. By 1885, Moses had amassed 318 acres in Westerville, building a sod house, granary, and windmill. Susan served as a vital midwife for the region. Their children became ministers, lawyers, and professional musicians. In 1903, their son Radford Speese became the first Black director in Nebraska to lead an all-white theatrical cast in the “Westerville Grand Musical.”
• The Meehan Family: Charles Meehan and his interracial wife Hester Freeman Meehan arrived from Ontario, Canada, in 1884. Charles led a wagon train of African Canadian families to settle near Overton in Dawson County before moving to the Sandhills. The family was instrumental in founding DeWitty in 1904, which became the most significant Black settlement in the state.
• The Walker Family: William P. Walker, a successful homesteader who moved near Brownlee in 1880, and his wife Charlotta Hatter Riley raised nine children who reached the highest levels of professional success. At his peak, Walker owned more than 1,900 acres across Richardson, Dawson, Cherry, and Johnson Counties. Their children became college professors, school principals, engineers, and nurses.
• The Hannahs Family: Robert H. Hannahs (1852-1939) was a formerly enslaved man who became a foundational figure in DeWitty, Nebraska. Born into enslavement in Missouri, the elder Hannahs became a freedom seeker who escaped to Elgin, Ontario, Canada. Migrating to Nebraska in 1908, he took up a homestead near the all-Black settlement of DeWitty and became a central figure in the community who farmed hay, hunted, and built up his property with the help of his wife and children. Hannahs was also the DeWitty barber as well as operating a shop in the nearby town of Brownlee. The Hannahs home was a social hub, famously hosting an annual picnic for the entire settlement every first Sunday in August. Married to Rosetta (1865-1952), Edward (1881-1941), Claude (1885-1954), Frances (1888-1928), Grace (1889-1964), Glenn (1894-?), Truth (1897-1949), Paul (1900-1904), and Herbert (1904-?). All of the Hannahs children were born in Ontario before the family migrated to Nebraska. By the 1930s, most of the children left the DeWitty area because of the Dust Bowl, which made their land unfarmable. One of the children migrated to Kansas, where several of the family members are buried in a family plot.
• The Shipman Brothers: Otis and Leslie Shipman founded the Shipman Brothers Grading Company based in Norfolk and Omaha. They were responsible for grading the Union Pacific Railroad and hundreds of miles of highways across the Midwest. Their business exclusively employed Black workers from North Omaha, providing high-quality jobs outside the city.

According to descendent Catherine Meehan Blount, other families from Ontario who soon joined Riley included Meehan, Robinson, Guilds, Walker, Hatter, Emanuel, Crawford, Brown, Hannah, Hayes, Woodson, Curtis, Ford, and many others.

2.B. Pioneers and Professionals of Rural Nebraska

Beyond the larger family settlements, individual African Americans broke barriers in small towns across the state, serving as vital community members in professional and civic roles.

• Jeffrey Deroine (1806-1859): A vital figure in the pre-territorial era, Deroine was a skilled linguist and fur trader, he served as a primary interpreter for the Iowa, Sac, and Fox tribes. His diplomatic work at the Nemaha Half-Breed Tract highlights the early, influential Black presence on the Nebraska frontier. Based primarily around Bellevue and Rulo, his linguistic skill bridged cultural divides during the volatile territorial transition.
• Dr. George Flippin (1868-1929): A legendary athlete at the University of Nebraska, Dr. Flippin moved to Stromsburg in 1903. Despite the racial climate of the era, he became the primary physician for the local Swedish immigrant population. He was so well-respected that he opened his own hospital and served all of Polk County.
• Thomas “Tommy” Goodchild (1844-1892): Arriving in Grand Island in 1876, Goodchild became the city’s first African American firefighter. Along with his brother Wilford, who was the first Black barber in the city, the Goodchilds were foundational members of a Black neighborhood that was established in Grand Island by 1889.
• Archie Alexander (1888-1958): A renowned engineer and architect, Alexander was hired in 1933 to design the Loup River Power Plant in Columbus. His work as a bridge and road builder across the country demonstrated that Black intellectual and technical expertise was essential to the infrastructure of rural Nebraska.
• William Thornton Patrick (1885-1952): A resident of Grand Island for decades and the son of a Pony Express rider, Patrick was a farmer and railroad worker who eventually became a hotel doorman. He was considered an unofficial ambassador for the city’s guests until his death in 1952.

2.C. Black Cowboys and Ranchers in the Nebraska Sandhills

Modern fascination with “Black Cowboys” finds its roots in the Nebraska Sandhills, where Black men were an essential part of the ranching labor force. Different from the Hollywood myth of the lone wanderer, these cowboys were highly skilled professionals in horse breaking and cattle driving. Some of them included…

• Benjamin Jackson (1860-1945): A former Buffalo Soldier, Jackson homesteaded near the ghost town of Wheeler in 1904. He built a sod-frame house and four miles of fencing, farming corn and sorghum while raising cattle on 638 acres.
• Amos Harris (c1846–1911): Later recognized as “One of God’s True Noblemen,” Harris swas a respected frontiersman, cowboy, and guide in Nebraska. Standing 6′ 3″ and weighing 250–300 pounds, he was a massive presence in the Sandhills, credited as one of Nebraska’s first Black cowboys and a highly skilled roper.
• James Kelly (c. 1839–1912): Known as “The Best Horseman in the West,” Kelly was a huge figure in Custer County. He rode for the legendary and controversial Olive Brothers and was famous for his skill with a lariat and his ability to “tame” the wildest horses. Unlike many transient cowboys, Kelly was a fixture in the Broken Bow-Ansley area for over 30 years.
• Robert Ball Anderson (1843–1930): One of the most successful figures in pioneer Nebraska, Anderson was a formerly enslaved Civil War veteran who became the largest African American landowner in Nebraska, eventually owning over 2,000 acres in Box Butte County.

Clem Deaver, the founder of the DeWitty settlement, was himself a noted horseman. Other figures like “Bronco Sam”—a legendary cowpuncher in the North Platte region known for his daring riding—and Bill Pickett, who performed his famous “bulldogging” steer-wrestling technique at various Nebraska rodeos and county fairs, cemented the Black cowboy as a central, albeit often overlooked, figure in the state’s ranching heritage.

3. The All-Black Towns and Settlements of Nebraska

Nebraska’s all-Black towns were born because people wanted safety and had to take care of themselves. Generally speaking, it appears that white people in rural Nebraska didn’t want to live by Black people because of that these pioneers had to become self-reliant and create community within their ranks instead of relying on the people around them.

While the 1862 Homestead Act offered land, African American pioneers in Nebraska often faced “sundown rules,” hostile white mobs, and credit discrimination. Their selling zones. By establishing independent settlements like DeWitty and Grant, these pioneers created protective buffer zones where they could own property, govern themselves, and escape the racial violence of the post-Reconstruction South.

3.A. Towns and Settlements

Nebraska’s landscape was dotted with at least a dozen Black settlements and all-Black towns, a number that reflects a mid-range of activity compared to the high concentration of the Exoduster movement in Kansas and the more sparse colonies in South Dakota. While Kansas was often viewed as the primary destination for those fleeing the South, Nebraska served as an important alternative for people who were seeking the specific land opportunities provided by the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Kinkaid Act of 1904.

These communities were often isolated from each other geographically, but socially and economically interconnected. Among the Sandhills cluster including DeWitty and Brownlee, they were linked to the Overton colony in Dawes County by shared wagon trains and family lines. Other settlements, like Bliss in Holt County and Grant in Franklin County, were more solitary, often emerging where a specific industry—like Grant’s brickyard—or a sympathetic ranch owner provided a foothold for self-sufficiency. This proximity allowed for a shared regional culture of baseball, rodeo, and communal labor that sustained these pioneers until the environmental and economic pressures of the 1930s forced a final migration toward urban centers.

Grant, Nebraska

Located on the banks of Lovely Creek in Franklin County, Grant was stablished in 1871 by settlers from Omaha. The first attempt at an all-Black town in Nebraska, Grant featured a brickyard and ambitious plans for a courthouse. However, it was underfunded and apparently abandoned within a year.

Bliss, Nebraska

Starting around 1875 on a ranch owned by a German settler in Holt County, Bliss kept a school, a post office, and a church served by a circuit minister going until 1918. Along the way the town’s name was changed to Goose Lake. Its post office remained open until the late 1930s, making it the longest-standing Black town in Nebraska with a 60+ year history.

Overton, Nebraska

Founded in 1890 near Chadron in Dawes County by formerly enslaved people arriving in a large wagon train, the town of Overton grew to sixty residents. After 15 years, a severe drought in 1905 forced its abandonment, with many families moving to nearby Cherry County to help establish the new town of DeWitty. Today, there is another town by this name in a different county that’s unassociated with this settlement.

DeWitty, Nebraska

In 1904, DeWitty was established by settlers homesteading under the Kinkaid Act. A long-standing town, today DeWitty is labelled the most significant Black-founded town in the state. At its peak in 1915, it had 150 residents, a post office, a general store, and its own school districts. Its residents had a huge impact on the surrounding region by claiming a massive amount of land—nearly 30,000 acres—and for their economic and social effects on the region. After changing its name to Audacious, the town fell because of the Dust Bowl and was entirely empty by 1936.

Other Places

Beyond these more notable places, there were other Black settlements in Nebraska too. They boomed and busted, or simply lingered on for years before disappearing. I located them after digging through academic papers, newspaper articles, and historic documents that aren’t read often. Today, these settlements are barely acknowledged in the state or beyond. They include…

• Clifton, Nemaha County: Started in 1879 by a former abolitionist white couple who hired Exoduster families moving north from Kansas, Clifton provided a home for residents like Harriette Green for many decades until her house was eventually excavated in 1997.
• Brownlee, Cherry County: Founded as a homesteading site in 1880 by pioneers including William P. Walker, the community served as a vital social and burial hub for Black families in the Sandhills for over forty years.
• Westerville, Custer County: Starting in 1880, the Speese family and others built a prosperous agricultural community that thrived for forty-five years before some families migrated to other Black settlements like DeWitty in 1925.
• Hamilton County Settlement (north of Aurora): This community formed in 1880 around the homestead of David Patrick and lasted for several decades as a small but respected enclave of Black farmers and business owners.
• Settlements Around Fort Niobrara, Cherry County: Established in 1879, these settlements served as a major center for Buffalo Soldiers and their families for seventeen years until the Ninth Cavalry departed in 1895 and the fort was eventually decommissioned in 1906.
• Harlan County Colony, Harlan County: A group of 200 Black pioneers attempted to establish a colony in 1889, but the settlement rapidly declined due to harsh conditions, leaving only four Black farmers in the county by 1900.
• Wheeler (Jackson homestead), Wheeler County: Former Buffalo Soldier Benjamin Jackson established a significant 638-acre homestead near the town of Wheeler in 1904 and maintained his farming operations there for sixteen years before moving to Central City in 1920.

3.B. Black Urban Communities Outside of Omaha and Lincoln

Long before much of the state’s Black population into Omaha and Lincoln, Black pioneers were woven throughout the fabric of Nebraska. In cities of all sizes from the Missouri River throughout the Panhandle, these residents served were barbers, physicians, firefighters, and community builders who built the state’s earliest civic and economic structures. In some cities and towns, this led to Black communities being physically segregated from white ones. In others, Black residents were actually integrated throughout towns.

Many of these once-thriving Black communities were dismantled by systemic racism and environmental disasters. However, their presence in the following cities marks a profound legacy of Black resilience across Nebraska. According to my research of the U.S. Census over the last 175 years, the following cities had substantial Black populations during the years listed. There may have been or continue to be African Americans living in these cities after these dates shown; they are simply meant to reflect the peak populations:

The dates provided for these Nebraska cities were selected to represent the specific windows of time when African American presence was most visible, documented, or transformative within each community.

For the earliest entries, in many of the eastern river towns and homesteading hubs, the start dates often show the first recorded arrival of freedom seekers via the Underground Railroad activity in the 1850s. The dates capture the era between the initial territorial settlement and the time when Black families left the South at the end of Reconstruction.

For the western and central regions, the dates are anchored by major legislation and military actions. Many dates start in the late 1870s or 1880s, coinciding with the arrival of the Buffalo Soldiers or the peak of the Exodusters migration into Nebraska. The 1904 start date for several Sandhills locations specifically mark the passage of the Kinkaid Act, which brought a different wave of Black ranchers to rural Nebraska and resulted in the founding of towns like DeWitty.

The end dates for these populations generally show forced departures. Large migrations from Nebraska cities happened around 1910 or 1920. This marks an era when Black people in rural communities were really isolated from the Black population in North Omaha. It also reflects the rise of organized racial hostility and violence towards Black families in Nebraska. In specific places like North Platte, the 1929 end date marks an exact moment of racial violence that resulted in an immediate exodus.

For towns that sustained a significant African American presence longer, the mid-1930s serves as a common closing point, representing the damning impact of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. That era effectively ended the era of the Black homesteader in outstate Nebraska and moved the story into its modern, urban-centered phase.

Moving from being spread all over to primarily living in just two cities, Nebraska’s Black population outside of Omaha and Lincoln today is just a tiny percent of what it was a century ago. For example…

• In Hasting, the city was home to over 300 Black residents in 1890, making up about 2% of its population. Modern estimates show that while the total number of Black residents has grown to nearly 800, they now represent less than 1.5% of the much larger city.
• North Platte once had a thriving community of over 200 Black residents before being violently displaced in 1929. Today its Black population is still statistically low at roughly 1%.

Statewide, the most recent data shows that while about 6.7% of Nebraska’s metropolitan residents identify as Black, just 1% of non-metropolitan or rural residents identify that way. This shows that the vibrant, self-sufficient Black colonies of the Sandhills and the Platte River valley were replaced by an urban-centered demographic, with outstate cities like Scottsbluff now recording Black populations as low as 0.3%.

Economic, political, and cultural patterns show that this wasn’t by coincidence, but by design. The determination of white supremacists in Nebraska brought this painful reality about 100 years ago, and their fixation has resulted in what appears to be a permanent lockout of Black people from forming and sustaining communities ever since.

3.C. Remembering Not to Forget

When the Black towns and settlements folded, their former residents didn’t just disappear. Instead, they added fuel to the massive social, economic and cultural effects of the Harlem Renaissance in North Omaha and beyond. However, a lot of people have forgotten their specific contributions to Nebraska’s growth and development. Along with the the towns and people mentioned throughout this article so far, some of the other specific rural African American contributors to Nebraska’s enrichment include…

Pioneers and Community Leaders

• Clem Deaver: A foundational figure in the Sandhills, Deaver learned there was 50,000 acres for settlement in Cherry County and used the Kinkaid Act of 1904 to get it. He became the primary recruiter for the DeWitty settlement, actively persuading other Black families—including those from the established Meehan group in Dawson County—to join the new colony. Other details about his life are unknown at this time (2026).
• Jeremiah Shores (1818—1906): The brother of Moses Speese, Shores was separated from his family during enslavement and later reunited with them in Nebraska. He was a key homesteader in Cherry County, where he built one of the region’s first sod houses and helped establish the agricultural base of the community. He was buried at Westerville.
• Isaac Bailey (1860-1947): Sergeant Isaac Bailey was a U.S. Army veteran who lived in Nebraska for several decades. Born in Texas, he enlisted as a Buffalo Soldier in 1883 and served until 1907 and was stationed at Fort Robinson for several years. Serving with Theodore Roosevelt at San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, he also served with General Pershing in the Mexican War and received several commendations for his valor. After his service, he and his wife Madge became important members of Omaha’s African American community. He was buried at Forest Lawn.
• Madge Bailey (1873–1969): According to historian Bertha Calloway, Mrs. Bailey “was the first known Black postmistress in Nebraska” who served at Fort Robinson. While her husband was stationed there, she read mail aloud to illiterate soldiers and taught basic literacy skills as part of her daily work.” Later, she became a successful North Omaha businesswoman and community organizer in North Omaha. She was buried at Forest Lawn.
• John H. Alexander (1864–1894): The second African American to graduate from West Point, Lt. Alexander was a distinguished Buffalo Soldier and for a time, the only Black officer in the Army. He was buried in Ohio.
• Henry V. Plummer (1844-1905): Born into enslavement, Plummer became a successful freedom seeker who became a Baptist preacher. Serving as a chaplain for Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Robinson, he was the only black officer in the Army for several years. In addition to Nebraska, Captain Plummer served in Kansas and Wyoming, and was a very active chaplain, drawing hundreds to his services, and was an active leader in the Temperance movement. He started a newspaper for Black soldiers at Fort Robinson, and promoted an Army expedition to western Africa in support of his era’s “Back to Africa” movement. He was dishonorably discharged from the military on trumped up charges, only to be cleared in 2005 of all wrongdoing.

However, as of 2026, the rest of these sites have been wholly forgotten, neglected and practically denied of their importance by Nebraska’s historical apparatus, including the Nebraska State Historical Society. The Great Plains Black History Museum has recognized some of the outstanding locations associated with Black history in the state, but the whole of this list has not been acknowledged there, either. I did include all of this in my 2025 publication with Preston Love, Jr. called “A History of African Americans in Nebraska,” though.

4. Isolation and Resistance

The decline of rural Black life was not just an act of nature. Instead, it was accelerated by systemic social and economic isolation and calculated racial hostility.

4.A. Barriers for Rural Black Nebraskas

Black homesteaders were frequently relegated to submarginal land—parcels with poor soil or lack of water access that white settlers had passed over. Furthermore, rural life was made difficult by “sundown rules”—unwritten but strictly enforced laws that forced Black people out of white towns after dark, preventing them from participating in evening commerce, town halls, or social networks that were essential for agricultural survival.

Another type of barrier came in politics. Nebraska still had a poll tax on its books as late as 1923, which was used to disenfranchise Black voters. As far as I can find, the state has never had an African American elected official outside of Omaha and Lincoln, so political representation has always been nil. Additionally, the banking bias, farming insurance, and other securities created for white rural residents statewide have always afflicted Black residents with racist practices, too.

The segregation of schools, churches, and other social institutions is evident, too. This didn’t prevent Black people from educating, worshipping, or socializing though. For instance, there have been many Black churches in rural Nebraska throughout the last 150 years. They have included many denominations, especially segregated congregations. One of the most predominant has been the AME Church, formerly called the African Methodist Episcopal Church. I have researched many of these congregations, and some of them have been located in unexpected places including Alliance, Beatrice, DeWitty, Grand Island, Hastings, Nebraska City, and North Platte. Churches of all sorts have been cornerstones of Black culture across America, and presumably had the same roles across Nebraska.

Although they were there, these barriers didn’t stop Black farmers, ranchers and others from succeeding in Nebraska for a long time.

4.B. Rural Racism in Rural Nebraska

Racism in outstate Nebraska was both systemic and cultural. Black people were discriminated against throughout Nebraska’s agricultural economy, in the educational and government systems, and throughout the cultural fabric of rural Nebraska.

Black farmers often found it impossible to secure the same credit lines at local banks as their white counterparts. Without capital to survive a single bad harvest, many were forced to sell their land to neighboring white ranchers for pennies on the dollar.

The 1920s saw a terrifying surge in Ku Klux Klan activity acress Nebraska. Membership in Nebraska exploded from 1,100 in 1922 to 45,000 by 1923. The Klan’s official “14 Points” specifically called to “forbid the employment of Negroes for any purpose,” aiming to starve out the Black population by cutting off all local labor opportunities.

Overt violence served as the ultimate tool of isolation. In 1887, Jerry White was lynched from a telegraph pole in Valentine. In 1929, the murder of Louis Seeman in North Platte served as a turning point. After police and National Guard set his house on fire to “smoke him out,” he was killed, and a mob of 100 white men forced the town’s entire Black population—75 people—to flee with only the clothes on their backs.

4.C. Creating Culture

Black people in rural Nebraska were not simply working the land or sleeping all of the time. Instead, they lived rich lives with dynamic experiences of all kinds. Throughout the communities they formed or were part of, in the history of Nebraska rural African American farmers, ranchers, townfolk and others created culture through religion, the arts, sports, and more.

For instance, in 1903, Radford Speese (1872–1924) became the first Black director of an all-white theater cast when he directed the “Westerville Grand Musical.” His mother, Susan Speese, was an important midwife to many nearby white and Black families. In DeWitty, baseball and music were the social glue of the families who lived there. Massive annual July 4th celebrations with rodeos, footraces, and dances were a regular part of their lives, and the residents were notable contributors and creators in the social life of their region. Robert Ball Anderson, the successful western Nebraska rancher, wrote an autobiography in 1927. Entitled From Slavery to Affluence, today it is the only known memoir of a formerly enslaved person in Nebraska.

5. A Closing(?)

The “double gut-punch” of the Great Depression starting in 1929 and the Dust Bowl from 1930 to 1936 decimated the remaining Black-owned farms. Windstorms and extreme heat destroyed crops across the state. Black farmers, who lacked the credit access and federal relief often funneled to white farmers, were unable to pay mortgages or rent.

By 1930, 90% of Nebraska’s Black population lived in Omaha or Lincoln. This in-migration was driven by agricultural failure and a desperate search for safety in numbers. While these cities offered a middle-class stature for some as Pullman porters or hotel bellhops, they also formalized segregation through redlining maps starting in 1936, trapping the once-independent rural population into crowded urban districts.

Recognized Rural Black History Locations in Nebraska

There aren’t a lot of markers to Black history in rural Nebraska, but a few exist. They include:

• Collection Museum, Falls City: Located on the site of the Dorrington Home, this family provided shelter for freedom seekers before the Civil War and was a key stop on the Lane Trail. In 2022, the ground was added to the National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad “Network to Freedom” program and a plaque was installed. There is also a storefront display at the museum sharing the Dorrington story.
• The Nebraska State Historical Society erected a historical plaque to commemorate DeWitty in 2005.
• Fort Robinson State Park, Crawford: Black soldiers dominated the ranks at Fort Robinson in militias were referred to as Buffalo Soldiers. A plaque entitled “Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Robinson” was installed in 1997 to recognize the service and contributions of these segregated regiments.
• 1887 Barracks Row (Dawes County): Located at Fort Robinson, these adobe barracks housed cavalrymen, including members of the segregated Buffalo Soldier regiments during the post’s expansion.
• Mayhew Cabin (John Brown’s Cave), Nebraska City: Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010, this site is one of only two in Nebraska officially recognized by the National Park Service as part of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. It served as a stop for freedom seekers, including a group of twelve led by John Brown in 1859.
• Speese and Shores Homesteads, Cherry County: While the physical sod houses have largely returned to the earth, the homesteads of the Moses Speese and Jeremiah Shores families are recognized by the National Park Service for their significance in the history of Black homesteading under the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Kinkaid Act of 1904.
• Collection Museum, Falls City: Located on the site of the Dorrington Home, this family provided shelter for freedom seekers before the Civil War and was a key stop on the Lane Trail. In 2022, the ground was added to the National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad “Network to Freedom” program and a plaque was installed. There is also a storefront display at the museum sharing the Dorrington story.

Unrecognized Rural Black History Locations in Nebraska

Some of the other notable Black history locations in Nebraska outside of Omaha and Lincoln include:

• Trussell Cemetery, Trussell: The original segregated Bliss (Goose Lake) Cemetery was eventually torn apart by wind erosion, leading to the reburial of the residents in a mass grave at this nearby cemetery. There is no marker there, but the cemetery is open.
• Stromsburg Cemetery, Stromsburg: The grave of George Flippin, the first Black football player for the University of Nebraska. Born to freed slaves, Flippin would go on to become a well-respected doctor and built the first hospital in the Stromsburg area.

The story of rural Black Nebraska is a reminder that the state’s Black history is not just an urban story. Though many physical towns are gone, the legacy of these pioneers—from the healers in Stromsburg to the ranchers in the Sandhills—remains the standard of “Equality before the law” as Nebraska continues to need to strive toward justice and equity.

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NEBRASKA BLACK HISTORY
Topics: A History of African Americans in Grand Island | A History of Rural Black Nebraska | A History of Enslavement in Nebraska | A History of the Underground Railroad in Nebraska

Elsewhere Online

• “The black experience in selected Nebraska counties, 1854-1920” by James D. Bish (1989). Student Work, 459. University of Nebraska.
• “African American Homesteaders” by Making Invisible Histories Visible, a past OPS program.
• “DeWitty, Nebraska” on Wikipedia.
• “African American Homesteader ‘Colonies’ in the Settling of the Great Plains” by J.K. Friefeld, M.B. Eckstrom, and R. Edwards in Great Plains Quarterly, 39(1) Winter 2019.
• “African American Settlers,” Nebraska Public Media.
• “Moses and Susan Cropps-Kirke Speese,” Homestead National Historical Park, National Park Service
• “Speese Family Biography” by Ava Speese Day.
• “Robert Ball Anderson, African-American Homesteader,” Nebraska Public Media.
• “The Empire Builders, An African American Odyssey in Nebraska and Wyoming,” by Todd Guenther for Nebraska History 89 (2008): 176-200.
• “A History of African Americans in Nebraska” by Preston Love, Jr. and Adam Fletcher Sasse, et al. in Roots of Justice: A History of Race and Racism in Nebraska (2025).
• “African Americans in Nebraska History: A Special Double Issue” Nebraska History magazine. (Fall/Winter 2010).