Pushed out of the South as Reconstruction ended and as white
landowners, employers, and "Redeemer" governments sought to
reestablish the constraints of slavery, thousands of African
Americans migrated west in search of better opportunities. As the
first well-known all-black community on the plains, Nicodemus,
Kansas, became a national exemplar of black self-improvement. But
Nicodemus also embodied many of the problems facing African
Americans during this time. Diverging philosophies within the
community, Charlotte Hinger argues, foretold the differences that
continue to divide black politicians and intellectuals today. At
the time Nicodemus was founded, politicians underestimated the
power of African American voters. But three of the town's black
homesteaders-Abram Thompson Hall, Jr., Edward Preston McCabe, and
John W. Niles-exerted extraordinary influence over county, state,
and national politics. Hinger examines their divergent strategies
for leading their community and for relating to white people, which
reflected emerging black worldviews across the United States as
African Americans grappled with the responsibilities accompanying
their new freedom. Hall supported racial uplift, McCabe insisted on
achieving equality through politics and legislation, and Niles
advocated reparations for slavery. Hall and McCabe, both
northerners, had distinguished educations, while Niles, a former
slave, was a gifted orator. Their differing approaches to creating
a new civilization on the prairie, seeking justice for blacks, and
improving the situation of Nicodemus citizens roiled Kansas
politics, already in turmoil over temperance and woman's suffrage.
Nicodemus was a microcosm of all the issues facing black Americans
in the late nineteenth century, and Hall, McCabe, and Niles are
archetypes for powerful philosophies that have persisted into the
twenty-first century. This study of their ideas and the ways they
shaped Nicodemus offers a novel perspective on the most famous
post-Civil War African American community in the West.
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