Although African Americans have only ever totaled less than one percent of the state's population, they have played a role in its history since the beginning. The Montana’s African American Heritage Places collection consists of histories, photographs, and architectural descriptions of properties across the state associated with African American history. Each corner of the state has significant stories to tell about the African American experience in the West. From 2014-2016, the Montana Historical Society oversaw the survey of 51 historic properties - 26 in Helena and 25 in other communities - and created Historic Property Record forms for each.
Buffalo Soldiers, African American soldiers who served in various forts in Montana.
Early Presence and Contributions
Several instances of the presence of African-Americans in the territory before the major gold rushes are known. William Clark’s slave, York, traveled with the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805-06. Henry “Negro Henry” Mills worked for the American Fur Company in Fort Benton from the late 1850s. James Beckwourth was a well-known trapper of the 1820s and 1830s whose life has been the subject of some interest. Isaiah Dorman served as a Sioux interpreter for the army who fell with Custer at Little Bighorn. Blacks also often worked on the steamboats that traveled widely up and down the Missouri River and docked at Fort Benton.
With Emancipation in 1865, African-Americans realized new opportunities and joined the westward migrations. While small in numbers, these pioneers contributed significantly to their communities. In 1870, the federal census counted 183 black people in Montana. This number doubled in 1880, reached 1,490 in 1890, and peaked in 1910 at 1,834.
Western blacks, many of whom carried the burden of slavery, tended to settle in Montana’s larger urban areas and founded communities within a sometimes hostile and discriminatory larger society. Against the backdrop of the Civil War, blacks often found themselves caught in the bitter struggle between Democrats and Republicans who in theory supported African-American equality, but did so in varying degrees. School segregation, black suffrage (achieved in 1867) and anti-miscegenation laws were controversial racial issues in Montana’s early territorial period. Finding consolation and community together, black citizens often established their own churches, benevolent societies, newspapers and social clubs.
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Despite the proportionately small numbers, the 1870 census shows that blacks on the Montana frontier engaged in diverse occupations and mostly concentrated in towns, especially Fort Benton and Helena. More than half of males listed their occupation as laborers, domestics, servants or cooks, and 27 percent represented themselves as barbers. A smaller percentage proffered their occupation as ranch hands, cowboys and miners, with one listed as a saloon keeper. A decade later in 1880, blacks still clustered in the larger communities of Helena and Butte where mining activities necessarily attracted service providers and laborers.
Fort Benton’s African-American population jumped from 20 in 1870 to 50 in 1880 because of the steamboat travel that brought in population from diverse places and because of the employment opportunities steamboats offered. African-Americans who came to Montana in the 19th century include William Taylor, a teamster; Samuel Lewis, a highly successful Bozeman barber; John Gordon, a trained chef; and James Crump who worked as a miner. African-American women also came to Montana with the first settlers and some assumed non-traditional roles.
Examples of Early African American Settlers
- William Taylor: A teamster who contributed to transportation in the region.
- Samuel Lewis: A highly successful barber in Bozeman.
- John Gordon: A trained chef who brought culinary skills to Montana.
- James Crump: A miner who participated in Montana's mining industry.
Challenges and Community Building
In an interview in 1979 for the Helena Independent Record, Norman Howard, grandson of James Crump, reflected on what it was like to be black in Montana. He believed that discrimination was tougher for blacks than for Indians. While Montana never posted signs for “Whites Only” as in the South, the same rules applied and most blacks found menial employment as waiters, janitors and hotel workers. Blacks were excluded from restaurants, bars and barber shops. By virtue of such exclusion, tightly knit black communities formed; however, as the civil rights movement brought changes for the better, these communities slowly disappeared.
Maintaining a strong black community also proved difficult as the lack of job opportunities in the state drew second- and third-generation blacks elsewhere. The Six Montana cities (Billings, Butte, Great Falls, Helena, Livingston and Missoula) that had Green Book listings between 1939 and 1967 demonstrate the continued presence of African Americans in Montana since the state’s initial American settlement in the 1860s. African Americans came to Montana primarily as freed persons starting in the 1870s, after the end of post-Civil War Reconstruction. Their paths were not always direct from the American south, but could involve chain migrations starting in Missouri, Kentucky or Virginia where a family member would establish residence (house, job and community) and then send for other members.
Like other settlers in Montana, African Americans came to take advantage of new social and economic opportunities. Montana’s extractive industries (gold, coal, and copper), military operations, transportation, hospitality, professional services, and farming attracted newcomers and provided employment. By the 1920s, both Montana’s overall population and the African American population in particular began to decline. For Montana’s African Americans, the issue became increased restrictions in the form of “Jim Crow” laws and the growing prominence of white supremacist groups. During the interwar period, those who remained formed communities across town and county lines, drawn together by kinship, friendship, common experiences and histories. Community groups, particularly the women’s clubs, and churches continued to be key to community cohesion.
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The Green Book and Later Years
When Victor Green began to include Montana in The Green Book in 1939, only one listing in Helena, Mrs. Mabel Stitt’s Tourist Home, appeared through 1951. In the 1952 edition, Green listed Glacier National Park, along with other national parks in a separate listing, as a vacation destination. It was not until the 1956 edition, following the 1955 passage of Montana’s accommodation nondiscrimination law, that listings in other Montana cities began to appear. All are concentrated in the central and western parts of the state and linked by highways or railroad. Although African Americans lived in the eastern part of the state, they did not live in towns in large enough numbers to offer consistent hospitality to travelers.
More African Americans came in the following decades to obtain homesteads. In 1866, Congress authorized the creation of six all-African American regiments, dubbed "Buffalo Soldiers" who served in various forts in Montana. The St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1888 and the Union Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 1891. By 1890, 1,490 African Americans lived in Montana. Montana's first Black newspaper, The Colored Citizen, was published in 1894. In 1933, nearly 1,000 African Americans came to work in the Kootenai National Forest as part of the Civilian Conservation Corps. However, national and local concern over integrated CCC camps led to their departure in 1934. The Malmstrom Air Force Base was built in 1942 near Great Falls, leading to more African American migration into Montana.
The Montana History Portal provides weekly updates on new content as well as tips on how to successfully navigate the site through this Highlights newsletter. February is Black History Month, and we are thinking about the contributions African-Americans have made throughout the history of Montana. This digital exhibit follows the exploits of the "Bicycle Corps" of the 25th Infantry Regiment, African-American soldiers who served at the end of the 19th century at Fort Missoula. Their pioneering expeditions on 2 wheels took them all the way to St. Peter’s Mission.
Dr. Hagen’s work is a core component of a larger, collaborative Montana Historical Society project documenting the state’s Black history, i.e., a place-based study of Montana’s African American Heritage (winner of the 2018 Leadership in History Award from the American Association for State and Local History and the 2019 Buchanan Award from the Vernacular Architecture Forum). That project is funded in part by the National Park Service, through its Underrepresented Community (URC) Grant. Hagen's work on the history of Black Montana earned her the 2018 Excellence in Consulting Award from the National Council on Public History and the 2023 Excellence in Consulting Award from the National Council on Public History.
The 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps and Montana's Buffalo Soldiers
Portions of this research serve as the basis for:
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- Black Montana's Heritage Places, a book-length National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation that examines the history and geography of Black Montana from the 1860s into the 1970s.
- African American Heritage Places in Helena, MT, a National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation that examines the history of Montana's African American community through a focus on Helena, the state capital and the heart of Black Montana.
- Driver's Saloon and Café, a National Register of Historic Places Registration that documents the last and largest of the restaurant and bar businesses that Lee Driver operated in the smelter town of Anaconda for some 20 years (ca. 1895-1915).
- The Dorsey Grocery and Residence, a National Register of Historic Places Registration that traces the history of one of Helena’s most prominent Black families-the Walter and Almira Dorseys- and the residence and store they built.
