Boley, Oklahoma: One of the Last All-Black Towns Still Standing

During the decades when Black people were being suppressed and subjugated by racist laws, many fought to carve out their own place in a segregated society. The results were black-owned businesses, churches and clubs. Some led the way to establish their own neighborhoods, organizations and newspapers. They built their own banks, schools and parks. And these became legacies of their fight and their success. But many of these legacies have been neglected and forgotten. For Black History Month, TheVillageCelebration will look at some of these abandoned legacies.

Henrietta Holloway Hicks can still remember the stories her family told her about Boley. When her uncles, who looked white, were chased out of their Black Louisianna neighborhood for being friendly with white girls, the family sought refuge in the small Oklahoma town.

They became one of the original settlers of the predominantly Black town that would soon see a population numbered in the thousands and become known by many for its prosperity.

It was the early 1900s and the Fort Smith & Western Railroad was still using steam engines that had to be filled with water for at least every six miles. It made a stop in Oklahoma. And two men, one a manager for the railroad, saw a few black families living in the area.

At that time, “There were shotgun houses and dugouts, log cabins people threw up just to have a place to live in,” said Hicks, who at 85 is considered the town’s historian.

The men decided to build a town and Boley was officially opened for settlement in 1903 in Creek Nation, Indian Territory.  The group that founded Boley: Lake Moore, a white attorney; John Boley, the white manager for the railroad; and Thomas M. Haynes, a black farmer and entrepreneur from Texas, began by buying property from a child.

With the help of James Barnett, a Creek Freedman, they purchased the land of Barnett’s 12-year-old daughter, Abigail, to establish Boley’s base, Hicks said. At that time, Native Americans had slaves who, after they were freed, were given land, Hicks said.

The men then reached out to Black people who came from all over, Hicks said.

“They brought in this man, planted the town and invited other Blacks who were running away from segregation. They came by the droves. They came by the carload. They came by the train-load.”

If You Build It…

Many in search of freedom and better opportunities flocked to Boley and the town grew to become the largest predominantly black town in the United States. During the early part of the 20th century, it was one of the wealthiest Black towns in the nation, according to online reports.

 It boasted two banks, including the first nationally chartered bank owned by Blacks, three cotton gins and its own electric company and water system.

It had people of all professions including seven physicians and a hospital, three dentists, lawyers and architects, Hicks said. It had a car dealership; grocery stores; hotels; restaurants; nightclubs; churches and fraternal clubs. Its Masonic Lodge was reportedly called “the tallest building between Okmulgee and Oklahoma City,” before it was destroyed by an arsonist.

Boley had a railroad depot, a post office, a telephone company, and a power plant.  It had a black tuberculosis hospital and the State Training School for Negro Boys.  All who visited Boley, including Booker T. Washington, marveled at the ambition and vigor of the townspeople, according to Blackpast.org.

By 1911, the town had more than 4,000 residents, and was home to two colleges: Creek-Seminole College, and Methodist Episcopal College, according to online reports.

“Our schools were equal to none,” Hicks said. When her mother went to school, she said, “they used to teach Latin. They taught everything they thought Black people needed to learn.”

The schools were so well known that at least five yellow buses would bring in students daily from the outlying areas to attend the schools.

“We had our own schools. We had our own everything. But when integration came, it changed things,” Hicks said. “People just migrated and left.”

After Oklahoma’s statehood in 1907, the citizens of Boley, like all Blacks in Oklahoma, struggled for their civil rights. 

“Although the day to day effects of segregation were muted in Boley, most people in the town were disfranchised in 1910 when the grandfather clause became law,” according to Blackpast.org. “However, Boley was an important location for all Blacks in the state as they worked to fight disfranchisement for the next two decades.”

In addition to political turmoil, the town also faced financial problems that plagued most small towns in the United States at the time.

After World War I, a fall in agricultural prices and the bankruptcy of the railroad helped lead to Boley’s failure. And it went bankrupt in 1939 during the Great Depression.

Before World War II, Boley’s population had declined to about 700. And by 1960 most of the population had left for other urban areas.

The younger generations, after finishing school, left to find work, said Hicks, who also left when she was in her 20s before returning almost two decades later. Many of the farmers also left after the boll weevil began destroying their cotton, she said.

“Then, of course, the government came along, saying you can only grow a certain amount of acres of cotton,” Hicks said. That caused more people to leave, she said.

Now there are about 500 residents left in the town and about 800 to 900 inmates in the state’s minimum-security prison that’s housed in the building that was once used for training incorrigible Black boys, Hicks said.

Many of the buildings are old and have been left abandoned in the small town by citizens who never returned, Hicks said. Still, life in the town saunters on and Boley remains one of the state’s few remaining historic African American towns. At one point the state of Oklahoma had about forty Black towns, Hicks said. Now, she said, there are about thirteen and all of them have only a handful of residents or more.

Boley, home to many descendants of the town’s original settlers, still has the largest population. It still has a fire chief, a police chief and four reserve officers as well as a judge, a mayor and its trustees. The post office is also still there.     

Often, tourists come to visit the town and a rodeo every Memorial Day weekend brings in thousands to the community.

“Boley was a very prosperous town, but times bring about change,” Hicks said. Still, she wants people to know the history of the town and its worth.

“People feel like there is a bit of freedom when they come here,” Hicks said.