The First Migrants

The First Migrants: How Black Homesteaders’ Quest for Land and Freedom Heralded America’s Great Migration

Authors Richard Edwards and Jacob K. Friefeld will discuss the largely unknown story of Black people who migrated from the South to the Great Plains between 1877 and 1920 in search of land and freedom. They exercised their rights under the Homestead Act to gain title to 650,000 acres, settling in all of the Great Plains states. Some created Black homesteader communities such as Nicodemus, Kansas, and DeWitty, Nebraska, while others, including George Washington Carver and Oscar Micheaux, homesteaded alone. All sought a place where they could rise by their own talents and toil, unencumbered by Black codes, repression, and violence. In the words of one Nicodemus descendant, they found “a place they could experience real freedom,” though in a racist society that freedom could never be complete. Their quest foreshadowed the epic movement of Black people out of the South known as the Great Migration.

This program is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation through the generous support of Verizon.

For live captioning, use: https://www.streamtext.net/player?event=27271-NARA-First.Migrants

Fair Use Disclaimer:

All content that uses public funds by any US government agency, state, or local government is available for worldwide use and reuse under the terms of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal license. Included within these resources may be copyrighted material(s), the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Any copyrighted content used is for educational, research, reporting, commentary, entertainment, informational, and criticism purposes.

In our efforts to provide the Rumble community with quality content that is “fair use,” this content is covered under Section 107 of the Copyright Act ( https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/ ).

If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes that go beyond “fair use,” you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

If you believe that any copyrighted materials appear in this content and you disagree with our assessment that it constitutes “fair use,” please get in touch with us.