Allensworth has also had a role in the historical continuum of all-black towns. While most African-Americans have always believed that hard work, perseverance and education would eventually lead to the triumph of justice and racial equality, if not for them, then for future generations, other African Americans have been less optimistic. The later African Americans doubted that a nation that had spawned the Ku Klux Klan and limited its black citizens’ opportunities by legislative and de facto discrimination would ever embrace the black man and woman as an equal. To some, the only hope lay in distancing themselves from whites. For example, individuals such as Paul Cuffee (18th century) and Bishop Henry Turner (19th century) urged African Americans to return to Africa, where one could develop one’s talents to the fullest as well as reaffirm ties to the African heritage. But such African repatriation plans met with limited success, for the simple yet powerful reason that most black people viewed American, not Africa, as their homeland and so greeted attempts to create African-American towns within the continental United States with much more enthusiasm.

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Black settlements have appeared on the American landscape since the colonial era, an example of which is the community of Parting Ways in Massachusetts. Like Allensworth, Parting Ways and countless other all-black communities were a response to overt racism: they were heralded by the black press as a positive step forward; were greeted with distrust and at times hostility by the neighboring towns; were begun with enthusiasm and pride, but with little capital; and almost all have been forgotten.

Allensworth, Calif., differed from other all-black towns in its sense of mission and use of those modern promotional tools previously described. Payne and Allensworth had hoped that by giving their town the widest possible national circulation, their thriving city on a hill would eventually change the attitudes of white America. Thus the community tempered individual gain with the need t uplift the African-American race. And that is surely worth commemorating.

One might just as well wonder why Americans commemorate the failed defense of the Alamo, for the fact that Allensworth ultimately failed is not the most important fact about the venture. What mattered then is that the attempt was made. And what matters now is that all Americans finally discover the depths of character and vision of those who, through their attempt to build a colony, tried to provide an opportunity for men and women to transcend race-based limits, and thus control their own destinies.

This article was written by B. Gordon Wheeler and originally appeared in the February 2000 issue of Wild West.

His Black California: The History of African-Americans in the Golden State is suggested for further reading, along with The Black Infantry in the West, 1969-1891, by Arlen L. Fowler; The Battles and Victories of Allen Allensworth by Charles Alexander; and The Negro Trail Blazers of California by Delilah Beasley.

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