"We Belong to the Land!": Revisiting Black Oklahoma

Abstract

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• “We Belong to the Land!”Revisiting Black Oklahoma
• Kalenda Eaton, Guest Editor

This special issue is devoted to undertold stories about Black experience in Oklahoma. The contributions reflect the resilience and determination of people tied to the land and its history. Over the past few years, the state of Oklahoma has experienced a renaissance among cultural historians, sociologists, politicians, entertainers, and community activists. The state, situated in what is pejoratively known as “flyover country,” has commanded wide-ranging national and international attention for its uncanny ability to remain at the forefront of historical studies, political debates, and contemporary popular culture. Yet, among the list of politicians, performers, and movie producers using Oklahoma as a platform for their own agendas are those residents who have worked to preserve the sanctity of the state and its communities.

Much of the recent attention misses the fact that since the mid-nineteenth century, Oklahoma has been one of the most politically important places in the United States. Nearly every part of modern American history found its way into Indian Territory and later Oklahoma. From the forced relocation of Indigenous and African-descended people to the territory, the Civil War battle fought at Honey Springs, decades of migration and westward expansion, the railroad and oil industries, the rise of white supremacist organizations, economic depression and agricultural devastation, residential redlining, civil rights and social action, school desegregation, Supreme Court nominations, domestic terrorism, tribal sovereignty, and more, the progress of the nation can be measured by what happens in Oklahoma. And, African Americans have been embedded in these stories from the beginning.

The idea for Lincoln territory mapped out in 1867 and the state of Sequoyah proposed in 1905 tells us that for many, the fate of Oklahoma pre-statehood was always rooted in Black and Indigenous autonomy. In the 1890s, lawyer and politician Edward P. McCabe attempted to convince all who would listen not only that African Americans in Oklahoma and Indian Territory needed equal rights but also that a portion of the newly formed “Twin Territories” should be the foundation for an all-Black state. McCabe’s position was based on the decades-long presence of African-descended people in the territories and the recent consistent flow of African Americans moving into the region [End Page vii] from the American South. For Black people, the promise of early Oklahoma consisted of the ancestral tie to the land for some, the economic practicality of homesteading for others, and the possibility of freedom and progress for all.

History tells us that the journey for African Americans in Oklahoma has been uneven, but still wholly American. In 2021 the world watched as Tulsa, Oklahoma, commemorated the centennial of one of the more economically devastating and deadly race-based massacres against African Americans in the United States. Leading up to the anniversary, many also watched fiction and reality collide when the possibility of reparations and reconciliation for Black Tulsans was front and center in limited television series like Watchmen and Lovecraft Country. The revived discussions about Oklahoma’s past buoyed the multiracial activism present after the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. Cities and states, overall, were forced to acknowledge “forgotten” violence enacted upon communities of color. More recently, the world watched again as the remaining survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, who are each over one hundred years old, were denied the opportunity of a trial jury or compensation for their trauma. Yet even with the necessary focus on Tulsa, it must be understood the Black presence in Oklahoma is expansive, runs deep, and is centuries old.

The goal of this special issue is to start conversations about the less discussed experiences of people of African descent living in both territory and state. The issue includes five articles by scholars noted for their significant contributions to the story of Black Oklahomans. In “Freedom Settlements of Indian Territory and Three Freedmen Community Clusters,” Angela Walton-Raji draws from her expertise as a genealogist, educator, and descendant of Black Freedmen to discuss largely forgotten communities of Black people formerly enslaved by members of the five tribes removed to Indian Territory. Often known as “Indian Freedmen,” they...