Rare 1920s Footage: All-Black Towns Living the American Dream | National Geographic

And Oklahoma is a unique space in terms of the number of African-American towns that were established. Some suggest upwards of 50 African-American towns between 1924 and 1928. Reverend S.S. Jones was going around documenting this sort of self-determined, vibrant African-American communities. You see the African-American educators, doctors, lawyers, land owners, oil bearers.

And I think that's what's so remarkable about this footage: to think that individuals, how many years out of slavery, are now owning oil wells that are producing 2,000 barrels a day. Is that not the ultimate American dream? Is that not the ultimate American story? It flies in the face of what I think some people consider part of African-American history and culture.

And I think that that was one of the things that Oklahoma—and what S.S. Jones is really kind of showing—is that African-American history and culture is not a monolith. In a way, it became kind of like a marketing tool to encourage individuals to migrate, to move there; that this is a place where you can live, you can thrive, and peacefully reside.

There were still palpable racial tensions, there are lynchings, there's Jim Crow segregation, there's all of these things. And you still have an African-American community, or many communities, that really speak to the fortitude and resilience of Black people in this country.