Early Settlers – Homesteaders
Willie Melton (1900-1969)
Willie Melton was a farmer and a Civil Rights pioneer in Fort Bend, Texas, responsible for helping to settle what...
James Edwards (1871-1951)
James Edwards was one of the most successful African American homesteaders in the state of Wyoming. Born in Ohio on...
Langston City Herald
The Langston City Herald was a black newspaper based in the Oklahoma Territory but with circulation throughout the South. The...
Peyton Colony, Texas (1865- )
Peyton Colony was a freedmen’s community established in 1865 by Peyton Roberts (c.1820-1888), an ex-slave who migrated to Caldwell County,...
James Kelly (ca. 1839-1912)
James “Jim” Kelly, born in Williamson County, Texas, was the son of manumitted slaves, “Uncle Amos” and “Aunt Phoebe” Kelly,...
John Grant Pegg (1869-1916)
John Grant Pegg was born around 1869 in Virginia. He began his career in about 1890 as a Pullman porter,...
George Washington Woodbey (1854-?)
Born into slavery on a plantation in Tennessee, George Washington Woodbey was largely self-educated and as young man supported himself...
Ava Speese Day (1912-1988)
Born in 1912, Ava Speese (Day) traveled with her family in 1915 to homestead in Cherry County, Nebraska. Taking advantage...
