Carving out a place for themselves: Black settlers’ pursuit of dream in late 1800s Nebraska gets new

[Omaha Steve]

African American Church congregation at DeWitty settlement in Cherry County, Nebraska. Scanned from the book "In Their Own Image" by the Great Plains Black History Museum.


http://www.omaha.com/living/carving-out-a-place-for-themselves-black-settlers-pursuit-of/article_4658f6ec-eddf-11e5-842f-df85a963c447.html

POSTED: MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2016 12:15 AM | UPDATED: 4:00 PM, MON MAR 21, 2016.
By Blake Ursch / World-Herald staff writer

CUSTER COUNTY, Neb. — Not much remains.

Names scrawled on an old county plat map. A few gravestones in a small cemetery. Scraps of memory — stories told to them by their parents — in the minds of elderly residents.

Not much remains in Custer County of the black homesteading families that lived here in the late 1800s. Their sod houses are gone, their descendants scattered.

These families were part of a wave of black settlers who came to Nebraska and other states after the Civil War, seeking lands offered by the government. They came here to start new lives, to claim land and work for themselves in a country that still didn’t know where they fit in. Within a generation or two they moved on, in search of better opportunities for their children.

FULL story and more photos at link.

[1StrongBlackMan]

1. Thank you, Steve. n/t

[NWCorona]

2. That was a good read

I especially liked the pictures. Those winters looked ruff!

[Dont call me Shirley]

3. K R & B