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May 7, 2020
Read more“Fiffinella” and “Burch” Harris Team Up in Pacific
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Her children arise and call her blessed...Proverbs 31:28a
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One by one each year flew by,
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The little girl in the middle is my grandmother, Wanda. She was born in 1912 to two Swiss immigrants. Her father was a blacksmith, and they lived outside Yakima, Washington.
Read moreThe All-Black towns of Oklahoma represent a unique chapter in American history. Nowhere else, neither in the Deep South nor in the Far West, did so many African American men and women come together to create, occupy, and govern their own communities. From 1865 to 1920 African Americans created more than fifty identifiable towns and settlements, some of short duration and some still existing at the beginning of the twenty-first century. For the next several weeks, we will focus on the following surviving towns, also known as the Thirteen Original All-Black Towns of Boley, Brooksville, Clearview, Grayson, Langston, Lima, Red Bird, Rentiesville, Summit, Taft, Tatums, Tullahassee, and Vernon.
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Located in Okfuskee County eight miles southeast of Okemah, Clearview is one of more than fifty All-Black towns of Oklahoma and one of only thirteen still existing. The town was founded in 1903 along the tracks of the Fort Smith and Western Railroad. J. A. Roper, Lemuel Jackson, and John Grayson platted the town site and formed the Lincoln Townsite Company to attract settlers and advertise the settlement. The post office was originally designated Lincoln, but in 1904 a postal service order changed it to Abelincoln. This, however, was rescinded a month later and named changed to Clearview. Reportedly three t stood on town officials stood on a hill north of town contemplating what they should name the town as they were looking down over in the valley containing the town and one of them said “Oh, What a Clear View.” Thus, the name “Clearview” originated. From the town’s beginning the community supported a newspaper, the Lincoln Tribune, which evolved into the Clearview Patriarch. Grayson and Roper also organized the Abe Lincoln Trading Company to operate a general store, deal in farm produce, and buy and sell real estate. Grayson also became the town’s first postmaster, and Roper owned a sawmill and lumberyard. By 1904, the town boasted a two-story hotel and a print shop. Very early in its existence Clearview residents enjoyed a brick school building and several churches, movie theater, sewing factor, two cotton gins, drug store, five dry good stores, bank, pop bottle company, brick plant, and other businesses. Around 1911 Roper and Jackson departed, and J. E. Thompson moved to Clearview. In 1914 at a Negro Business League meeting he announced to Booker T. Washington that he owned or managed a total of 5,800 acres of land in Okfuskee County. From 1916 to 1920 J. C. Leftwich operated Creek and Seminole Agricultural College northeast of town. The 1907 population figure of 618 and reached it peak at almost 1,000 at the 1910 census but declined to 420 by the late 1930s. The Great Depression and the falling price of cotton had severely crippled the town. The 1990 census recorded only 47 inhabitants of Clearview. At the turn of the twenty-first century the community still hosted an annual rodeo and supported 56 residents. The 2010 U.S. Census counted 48 living there. Currently, residents return for family reunions, the annual rodeo, and Founder’s Day events. It is home to the Oklahoma African American Educators Hall of Fame, Inc.
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