>>A small town once lived here, in the wide
open spaces of opportunity.
It was a modest town on the plains of the
New Mexico territory.
A few wood-frame buildings held together with
little more than pioneer pride.
Over there stood a general store.
Here, a church and a school house.
Down the road were small homes with green
gardens.
Life here was primitive and much was improvised.
Lard and pot ash were used for soap.
Whole buildings were toppled in the strong
prarie wind.
But with each passing season, more people
came here to settle.
For this was a place where dreams were possible.
It was a place of freedom.
Begun in the early 1900s, this pioneer town
was different than most built in the west.
It was heralded as the first exclusive negro
settlement in the New Mexico territory.
It was a place where blacks could truly be
free.
A planned colony, where they could determine
their own destiny and not be attacked and
harmed because of the color of their skin.
A man from Georgia, Frank Boyer, founded this
town and called it Blackdom.
It was more than a claim staked in the dirt.
Moral stewardship, personal freedom and ethnic
pride, these were the corner stones Boyer
used to support families and build a community.
>>A leader is someone who can motivate people
to do things that they have not done before.
So here is Francis Boyer motivating people
to say yes, we can establish a whole township.
It's possible, people.
We can name the town.
We can name the streets.
We can have our own schools.
We can have our own post office.
We have these skills.
That's the knapsack of experiences we brought
from the period of slavery.
Let's do it.
That was the leadership.
>>Little is known about Frank Boyer, and the
town of Blackdom.
History has often overlooked the contributions
of African Americans.
>>I think black history in itself is a compilation
of just about everyone's history because of
the diversity of the different ethnic groups
that would be involved in black history.
History itself cannot be taught in a vacuum.
One of the things that has been done in the
past is that the Eurocentric thought of history
has been somewhat in a vacuum, to the point
where it has eliminated the contributions
made by other groups, especially blacks.
>>Boyer was a child in Georgia when he first
heard about the West, his imagination sparked
by his Father's memory of the vast, unclaimed
land of the Southwest.
Frank's father was Henry Boyer, a free negro
from Pullam, Georgia, who served as a wagoneer
in Col. Alexander Doniphan's army of Missouri
volunteers, fighting in the Mexican American
war.
Henry was not the only black to see the potential
of a new start in the western frontier.
Blacks had gone west as part of the military,
as workers on the railroad, as cowboys, fur
trappers, and colonists.
>>Most people simply believe that the first
blacks that came to America were slaves.
That is not necessarily true.
The early blacks that came here to explore
with the Spanish came to this country, they
weren't all slaves.
Some of them were soldiers, some were free
men, just like the Spanish citizens.
>>The west really was somewhat uncharted territory.
A man was gauged by his ability and his skills
and his character moreso than the color of
his skin.
>>After the war, Henry went home to Georgia,
enchanted by the west and undoubtedly imprssed
upon his family the opportunity for a future
in the unspoiled New Mexico territory.
Henry never returned, but his son Frank grew
up listening to his father's tales and the
words of the black leaders of the time.
>>I Believe in the pride of race and the lineage
of self, in pride of self so deep as to scorn
injustice to other selves especially do I
believe in the negro race, in the beauty of
its genius, the sweetness of its soul and
its strength in that meekness, which shall
yet inherit this turbulent earth.
>>This period after the Emancipation Proclamation
is probably one of the most interesting and
exciting periods of the experience of black,
the black race in this country and just Black
America in general because, never before had
a group had to decide how shall we live out
our lives.
>>At the bottom of education, at the bottom
of politics, even at the bottom of religion,there
must be for our race, economic independence.
>>Let's look at the contemporaries, of Frances,
there was a D.W.Bou, Book T. Washington, of
that era.
Certainly, he was influenced by those influences
were influenced by the people that we live
with during over time.
He was influence and what he saw perhaps as
I tried to imagine the energy and the enthusiasm
and motion that gripped him, that we, we needed
a Moses.
Someone that would lead people out of continued
Jim Crow Laws after the Emancipation Proclamation.
So here is a man being influenced by the contemporaries
of his time.
Saying that there is something in me that
says that black people in this country, the
negro people can have a better life.
>>humming
>>Frank grew up in the years after the Civil
War.
A time when blacks had never experienced so
much opportunity, and so much hatred.
They were becoming teachers, lawyers, business
men.
In reaction southern politicians sought to
destroy their rights, while violence threatened
their daily lives.
In 1877 reconstruction failed.
Union troops left, and angry mobs killed nearly
2000 blacks.
>>The were essentially forced to segregate.
They couldn't read or write.
Those conditions were miserable.
You couldn't vote, you couldn't participate
in the democracy.
You weren't respected, and if you saw a white
person walking down the street you had to
get off the curb and walk in the middle of
the street.
So it was a stressful time of poverty and
being hated for who you are.
>>Escape seemed impossible, blacks migrating
north faced over crowding and unemployment.
Many tried to leave the country all together
and flee to Liberia.
Those that remained in the south suffered
under a new form of slavery,share cropping.
>>The life of the average family was extremely
hard, because in theory they were free, but
the reality of that was just like the reality
of share cropping.
It said you're earning a living, but yet at
the end of the year, you were deeper in debt,
you were tied more to the land.
So many things had been stripped from the
average black family, but they saw no other
choice but to go and find the separate place
where they could live as separate individuals.
>>The west was anew start, where the future
was not predetermined, but invented.
It was an incredible notion to own land and
to raise children without fear of racial violence.
The Homestead Act provided lands to all families,
regardless of race, as long as they improved
the land and stayed on it at least one year.
Blacks had the opportunity to do what was
never possible before, to create their own
future, to be free.
Black communities sprouted from Kansas to
California with the greatest concentration
in the Oklahoma territory.
This migration was much larger then what is
recorded in the history books.
Nearly 40,000 blacks alone migrated to Kansas,
between 1877 and 1880 during the Ex-or-duster
Movement.
>>In the west, a lot of times they were going
completely without any realization of what
this might mean, but they were willing to
take that chance.
They felt we had no other choice, we either
become subjected to this ongoing oppression
or we begin to take our lives in our hands.
>>So the west was an escape, there of.
There was a haven, the promise land.
It was like a magnet, drawing people from
something bad.
It was like the legacy of the children of
Israel, leaving an oppressed bondage and going
to find freedom, and to establish their own
property on their own land.
>>Educated, charismatic, proud, and poor Frank
Boyr grew up in these times and also wanted
to leave the south, but realized first that
he must complete his education.
Working his way through school, he eventually
graduated from Moore House University and
began to teach.Frank had the courage to teach
black history to his students, and extraordinary
idea at the time and one for which he was
severely rep-amended.
Frank continued his work in black history
during his free time and traced his own roots
to the Eboo people of Nigeria.
>>My grandfather always wanted to teach black
history.
He wanted them to know what was going on.
He felt like they needed to know their roots
for them to figure out where they were going
to go from then on.
What he really liked was the fact that he
knew the tribe from which he came.
The Eboo tribe, they were more of a intellectual
type people.
and they went like in government, and so he
just knew that he had some stock, that he
could work with.
>>Teaching jobs were scarce and unstable.
To find work Frank traveled all over the south
on foot.
As he would settle into each area, his dream
of an all black community began to take shape.
>>Francis said, "I must do this." and you
can see this developing as a young man, going
to Florida, trying to start an African city.
You can see him in Putmund Georgia, you know
trying to start another all black city.
So it was in his genes, it was in his emotions,
it was in his desires to say, "where can we
go to form this land?"
>>Frank met and fell in love with Ellen Gruder.
She was also a school teacher, a graduate
from Hans institute in Georgia.
Ellen was a woman of tremendous character,
who also longed for a better life.
Frank and Ellen married and had three sons
and a daughter in Georgia.
>>The decade between 1890 and 1900 was the
most dangerous time for a black man to be
alive.
Frank saw first hand the brutality of that
decade.
He witnessed a white costumer kill a black
barber for knicking him while shaving.
A jury found the white man innocent of murder,
after all they said, "the black barber had
knicked him twice."
>>From what I can understand from Boyer he
had never seen a killing, but when he sees
this with his own eyes, it was like life had
no meaning.
And it's got to be dis-concerning to say you
know, nobody got angry about this.
You know, so what do we do about this?
Do we just let it go like that?
So i think he's had it, enough is enough,
and I'm going to leave.
>>Frank Boyer left the south, with little
more than the clothes on his back and the
fathers tales of the west in his pocket.
Ellen would stay behind in Georgia until Frank
settled and sent for her and the children.
Frank did not journey alone, for one of his
students Dan Keys joined him.
Together they walked nearly 2000 miles to
the promised land.
To the wide opened spaces of the New Mexico
territory.
>>Music with lyrics
>>To survive the exhausting trip they took
on odd jobs and did what they had to.
>>Dan Keys, sometimes they would get in towns
where they would shoot at your feet and make
you dance, you know.
He was angry, but it was a controlled anger
because, what could he do about it?
You know?
You couldn't stop it.
>>Accepting being an outcast was simply a
challenge.
So these were simply trails that test you
in the fire.
And the hotter the test, the more pure you
are.
And no doubt that walk he was being refined
and being developed and encouraged and strengthened,
spiritually.
>> Over a year, after they have left Georgia,
Boyer and Keys arrived in the Pecos River
Valley near Roswell in 1898.
Frank worked odd jobs for local ranchers to
save money and to bring out Ellen and the
children.
They arrived in Dexter in 1901.
Frank hadn't seen Ellen in nearly 3 years.
>>Ellen, to me, must have been a very remarkable
woman.
She was willing to wait and she was ready
to assume that journey herself and take on
whatever waited at the other end.
And if you could imagine how long that and
how hard that must have been, not knowing
when her husband would be back to get her,
but her determination seems to be, "I'll stick
with him, no matter what." and I think that
made her a remarkable woman.
We almost don't know whose dream that it is
at this point which is very naive to think
about.
>>Frank and Ellen first settled in Dexter,
raising their family and planning for the
future.
They farmed acres of hay and alfalfa.
They were making their own decisions, running
their own lives, and on the verge of making
their dream come true.
As soon as Frank and Ellen broke ground for
the first planting, Frank set out to create
the community he had planned for, for so many
years.
A separate colony, where there was no one
to help and no one to hinder.
>>Frank Boyer was a bright young man, and
very enterprising.
He was a practical man, he built a school
with the help of his students.
He founded townships, so he was very bright,
he knew how to fill out forms, he knew how
to get things legally documented.
He knew a lot that a lot of black people didn't
have access to.
So my picture of him is a strong man who knew
what he wanted, knew what he believed in and
was willing to take some big chances to see
that those things happened.
>>The town of Blackton began on this barren
piece of land.
About 18 miles southwest of Roswell.
Today it looks un-liveable, but at the beginning
of the century it was a lush garden.
Summer rain and winter snow fall had been
plentiful for years, and dry land farming
was liable.
What made this land rich, however, was the
discovery Artesan water.
Just below the surface bubbled millions of
gallons of water, gushing out of shallow wells.
After many attempts, sacrifices, and struggle
their dream became reality.
>>Music with lyrics
>>The Boyer family moved here into a modest
room home.
Frank advertised in southern newspapers to
offer blacks a better way of life under the
vast western sky.
Families from the south began to arrive and
state claims in Blackton.
Frank and Ellen invited new arrivals into
their home and supported them sometimes for
months.
The sacrifice meant little to Frank.
With each new bird, Blackton grew and the
dream prospered.
>>That was an investment, not only survival
again, but that was an investment in your
children.
>>Although the town was not incorporated until
1921, from 1902 to the mid 20's black families
continued to arrive and prosper under New
Mexico's blue sky.
A church was built and used as a school house.
Many children began an education for the very
first time.
>>Emphasis was being placed on preparing their
children for not only the 20th century but
the 21st century.
And at the heart of the society was education.
>>Daily life in Blackton centered around the
basic necessity's.
The quest for food, water, clothing, and shelter.
Every member of the family worked.
Still residents in the town regularly attended
church and bonded together in times of both
strive and celebration.
June 10th Emancipation Day was a big holiday.
Every year the residents of Blackton invited
white ranchers to celebrate with an afternoon
of good food and a game of baseball.
>>There was limited that brought the community
together.
People look forward to the major event, it
happened every year with something to do.
You know?
There wasn't a whole lot of entertainment,
and this was entertainment for the whole day,
it was a whole day that was spent that way
from morning till sun down.
>>Like many prarrie towns, Blackton had it's
struggles.
>> I would imagine life in Blackton was very
difficult.
The winds blew across at furocious speeds.
But when you think of the every day lives,
the emotional lives, it had to be even harder.
Here you are, you are cut away from the family
you've known in the south, and you've got
to remember, black people are very family
oriented.
It's got to be a very lonely life.
You have to depend on yourself for many of
the things that you need.
>>Winters were harsh.
Strong gusty winds could dislodge a building,
and kill livestock.
For years persistance Blackton alive, but
the weather began to fail.
In 1960 worms invaded the crops.
Alchalide build up began to poison the soil.
The summer rain and the winter snows disappeared.
And suddenly the Artesian water began to dry
up.
Most of the men had to work on nearby white
farms to support their families.
>>The husband would have to go off, work on
somebody else's farm, come back just to add
a little shed in the back.
The citizens called it the proving up.
So they would say, "My father would have to
proof up every year."
meaning he would have to make some improvement
on his land to fulfill the homestead requirements.
It was very hard to make a living.
>>To make Blackdon a true town in the eyes
of New Mexico's laws, Frank and Ellen Boyer
filed a plant for the town site in 1921.
Blackdon consisted of 40 acres and 166 lots.
But by the time the papers were filed, too
many wells tapped into the Attesian water,
lowering the water table.
Although the town had prospered and a dream
was realized, the water that had made the
town possible was gone.
And by the time Blackton was officially recognized,
it's life was nearly over.
>>It didn't fail because of any human actions.
It failed because of nature.
>>Residents moved to Roswell, Dexter, and
Las Cruces.
Frank and Ellen's family were some of the
last to leave.
The bank already having foreclosed on their
home.
>>Blackton?
What does it really mean?
It means that our people that were weird and
slavery and treated as animals and not considered
human, yet had dreams.
>>The pioneering spirit lives on in the Boyer
family today.
A glimse of the 220 Boyer family reunion is
a testament to the success of Frank and Ellen
Boyer's dream.
What began with one man lives as a legacy
for a generation.
>>This is a dream come true, one that I never
thought I"d ever see this.
I really didn't and here's grandpas, wait
hold on this would be what how many grandsons?
Wait great great granddaughter standing on
the site where great grandma my grandmother
and my grandfather dreams came here from Georgia.
Look at that . So here you are almost 100
years later and you're standing on the same
site.
You like it?
Yeah, Okay.
Alright.
Well go around and see if you can find something
else.
Okay.
Grandpa, I just want to tell you that, that
I am thankful to you for your instilling in
me, personally, the atitude that it can be
done, if you work at it.
