African and African American Studies Research Guide

Ames Overview

Much of early Black history in Ames is connected to Iowa State University. Please see the ISU Black History column on the left side of this web page. Early Iowa censuses show that Ames and all of Story County had very few Black residents, a pattern that persisted into the early 20th century. The university was a primary reason many Black individuals and families came to Ames. In the words of one researcher (see video below), while Blacks were generally accepted into the Ames and university communities, still "de facto segregation and overt racism existed" and made life challenging for Black students and families. Well into the 20th century, Iowa State and Ames remained quite segregated. View the video below for more information.

History of People of Color in Ames, Earliest Times to 1950

Presented by Gloria Betcher and sponsored by Ames History Museum. Historic census data presented in the video show that Story County (where Ames and ISU are located) had no more than 10 Black residents enumerated during 1865-1910! George Washington Carver arrived in Ames in 1891 and became the first Black student to graduate from Iowa State. He likely was also the first known Black individual to live on campus, although it is not clear where exactly he lived. Duration: 90 min. 

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Burlington Overview

The book Iowa's Black Legacy includes a chapter on Burlington. Like many river towns, Burlington developed into one of Iowa's earliest cities due to its location on the Mississippi. According to the book, before the end of the Civil War its location also made it "a haven" for self-emancipating Black people and a site that attracted business and industry. The book does not include many specifics about the history of Black communities there but does include many photographs of prominent individuals from Burlington. Historian Dwain Coleman (see resources listed below) provides more specifics and research in the article "Times Certainly Have Changed," dating Black history in Burlington to the early 1830s when the settlement was founded. Coleman's work stands to refute what he terms the "whitewashing" of midwestern history and traces the development of Burlington's Black communities -- from early legal interventions for enslaved people to gain their freedom; to details on the First Iowa Infantry of African Descent; claiming citizenship and equal rights; to early residents and their occupations and organizations, including "Prince Hall masonry... Old Fellow Lodges, Colored Women's Clubs, and churches like St. John AME and Second Baptist." (p36) The article is a great read for learning more about Black history and contributions to Burlington. Includes a few photos and many cited sources for learning more.

Buxton Overview

Buxton was an early coal mining community in Monroe County in southeastern Iowa, founded in 1873 after the Muchakinock coal mines in nearby Mahaska County began to be depleted. Both settlements were notable for being thriving communities that were racially integrated, generally tolerant, and free of racial violence. Buxton in particular became a highly cultured community that attracted many Black professionals. Buxton was created by railroad entrepreneurs specifically for coal mining to meet the coal-burning needs of trains and the railroad industry. Due to white coal miners striking for fair and safe working conditions at the many coal mines throughout the area, 62 Black coal miners were recruited from Virginia to come work in the mines. It was certainly not an ideal situation as the Black miners were viewed by some as strikebreakers. Nonetheless, opportunities and pay were better in the coal mines than conditions and racial violence in Virginia. The men were soon joined by their families and neighbors and additional Black miners recruited from Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, all  together forming the beginnings of flourishing Black communities in the area. Buxton was unique in becoming a highly developed Black-majority and integrated town boasting schools, churches, banks, a YMCA, many Black-owned businesses, and a total population of more than 4600. As Buxton's coal began to give out around 1910, Blacks quickly began leaving Buxton for employment in other parts including Des Moines, Knoxville, Waterloo, Detroit, and elsewhere. Today Buxton is defunct and no buildings remain. 

Searching for Buxton

Duration: Circa 15 min. Narrated by the renowned Simon Estes, whose father was a coalminer.  Finding Buxton, Part 2 also available; duration circa 14 min. Both with 

Most narratives about Buxton and the Muchakinock stress how integrated these communities were and their "amazing" lack of racism. However, interest convergence might be a helpful framework for understanding these interracial communities. While coal mines were booming and Black miners were a significant percentage of the workforce for these difficult and unsafe jobs, company policy demanded nothing threaten the stability of the workforce. Mahaska County and Oskaloosa as its county seat also benefitted from the profitable industry and the commerce it attracted. Once the coal mines were depleted, the Black community dispersed for opportunities elsewhere.

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Cedar Rapids Overview

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Des Moines Overview

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Fayette County & Black Farmers Overview

Around 1852, several Black and multiracial families traveled together to Fayette County from Illinois, seeking farm land on which they could collectively settle and thrive as farmers. The area they ultimately selected was in rural Fayette County in northeast Iowa, in between the towns of Fayette and West Union. The history of their farming community is discussed in the book Bright Radical Star. 

Grinnell Overview

The settlement of Grinnell was founded in May 1854 by Congregational minister and abolitionist Reverend J.B. Grinnell, along with his colleagues Thomas Holyoke, M.D., Reverend Homer Hamlin of Ohio, and surveyor Henry M. Hamilton. Grinnell himself had traveled from New York to Iowa with the purpose of establishing a Christian abolitionist community. Because of this history and the Congregational Church's firm anti-slavery stance, Rev. Grinnell and others in the town of Grinnell were actively involved in the Underground Railroad.

However, that does not indicate that all who lived in Grinnell were abolitionists. Fannie Overton, a self-emancipated 16-year-old, was taken in by an abolitionist family in Grinnell who began helping her pursue education. Renamed Frances, she excelled in her studies and won recitation prizes in Sunday school and was allowed to attend the local school, all of which reportedly upset some white settlers in the community. Soon a "former sea captain" who had settled in Grinnell reported Frances to a bounty hunter. Frances hid in the attic of her host family until they were able to smuggle her out of Grinnell to a "Quaker neighborhood, about 50 miles distant" for her safety. Similarly, in 1860, the same captain and cronies led a violent and armed riot to prevent four self-emancipated Black men from learning to read at the local school. After the riot, abolitionist Sarah Bixby opened a school for Blacks in her Grinnell home.

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Keokuk Overview

Includes closed captions

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Mount Pleasant Overview

Coming soon... 

Muscatine Overview

Includes closed captions

Oskaloosa & Muchakinock Overview

What little has been written about Black history in Mahaska County has focused on the coal mining settlement Muchakinock and its connection to Buxton in nearby Monroe County. The equally notable Black history of Oskaloosa and surrounding areas has rarely been explored. The Mahaska County seat is Oskaloosa, a small city with a pronounced Quaker history. In the 19th century, Quakers across the country were known to be anti-slavery and later strong allies for civil rights, as were the clergy and membership of the Congregational Church, also present in Oskaloosa. William Penn College, the Quaker Friends Church, and the Congregational Church were strong moral pillars for the community. This is not to say that all of Oskaloosa or Mahaska County were abolitionists or racially tolerant but as in Grinnell there were important pockets of tolerance that provided some protections and opportunities not always available in other Iowa counties.

• For example, in 1845 the Oskaloosa courts promptly threw out a case that had originated in neighboring Marion County, where law enforcement and residents were rabidly pursuing prosecution of Thomas and Rose Ann McGregor, an interracial married couple whose intent to settle in Marion County upset powerful individuals there who demanded Rose Ann produce papers proving to them that she was not a so-called runaway slave. Thomas and Rose Ann both refused to comply, and were protected by the Oskaloosa courts. Unfortunately, hostilities resumed with the couple's decision to return to Marion County to claim their land and soon they ultimately left Iowa.  (see Black Pioneers, p. 129).

Areas near Oskaloosa and throughout Mahaska County were also known for their coal deposits, making mining an important early industry in the region. Muchakinock was a coal mining community near East Des Moines township, which (not to be confused with the city of Des Moines or the county of Des Moines) was located in the southeastern corner of Mahaska County. Due to white coal miners striking at Muchakinock, 62 Black coal miners were recruited from Virginia to come work in the mines as strikebreakers. The white miners striking for fair wages and better working conditions certainly did not welcome the Black strikebreakers. Nonetheless, the Black miners were soon joined by their families and neighbors and additional Black miners recruited from Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, all  together forming the beginnings of Black communities in the county.

The 1870 Census showed Oskaloosa's Ward 1 alone already had a population of more than 70 Black and multiracial individuals, representing about 20 families living in single family homes. The heads of household fathers were largely tradesmen (brick makers; stone masons; carpenters, a barber, etc.) and day laborers. 

• Among the many Blacks enumerated as living in Oskaloosa in the 1870 Census was Peter Hagen, a 50-year old Black barber born in Tennessee whose real estate in Oskaloosa in 1870 was valued at $3200.

A later article in the Oskaloosa Herald newspaper from Oct 02, 1884 ·page 3 mentioned the same Peter Hagen had been selected as Oskaloosa's representative to the Mahaska County Old Settlers Association, a group that selected one "early settler" representative from each township in the county. It is meaningful that Hagen was the chosen representative for the city of Oskaloosa, the county seat. The article further identified Hagen as "the oldest colored resident in the county" at that time.

• The 1880 US Census shows about 113 Blacks living at Muchakinock's Harrison Township settlement. This was largely a mining community.
• As early as 1894, Major Barber, a Black coal miner who resided in the small township of Garfield near Oskaloosa, became active in local politics and civic affairs. Beginning in April 1894, the Oskaloosa Herald newspaper listed Barber as among the elected county delegates for the Republican convention, and thereafter listed his various accomplishments, including being named as a trusted enumerator for the 1900 Federal Census for Garfield Township. This appointment as a Census enumerator documents the fact that Major Barber was educated and highly literate; the Census forms he filled out show he had beautiful penmanship. Barber was elected once again as a convention delegate in 1900.

Around 1893 through at least 1895, Oskaloosa had its own weekly Black newspaper called The Negro Solicitor, which came out on Saturdays and was produced by George E. Taylor, editor and publisher. According to the American Newspaper Annual, circulation was estimated to be 1640 subscriptions. (Section on Iowa, p. 257) Taylor lived in Oskaloosa from 1891-1900 and later became the first African American to officially run for US President, in 1904.

• In 1899, Edward A. Carter from Buxton was the first Black student to graduate from the Oskaloosa High School in 1899. Several Buxton coal mining families were able to send their sons and daughters to pursue higher education in Oskaloosa. Carter later became a doctor, and was the first Black graduate from the University of Iowa College of Medicine. 
• In 1945, the first Black woman to be hired as a college professor in the entire state of Iowa was Madeline Clark Foreman, hired to teach at Oskaloosa's William Penn College. However, according to the linked article, some townspeople protested the professor living in their white neighborhood.

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Waterloo & Cedar Valley Overview

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