The First Migrants: How Black Homesteaders' Quest for Land and Freedom Heralded America's Great Migration

by Jacob K. Friefeld and Richard Edwards

2024 Spur Award Finalist

The First Migrants recounts the largely unknown story of Black people who migrated from the South to the Great Plains between 1877 and 1920 in search of land and freedom. They exercised their rights under the Homestead Act to gain title to 650,000 acres, settling in all of the Great Plains states. Some created Black homesteader communities such as Nicodemus, Kansas, and DeWitty, Nebraska, while others, including...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1496230841
• ISBN13: 9781496230843
• Release Date: August 2023
• Publisher: Bison Books
• Length: 508 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.9" x 6.1" x 9.1"