Why did African Americans move west to the Great Plains?

African Americans were there in the early years of exploration, through the conflicts over slavery in Kansas, on the cattle drives, and in the celebrated black frontier regiments. As "Exodusters" they were part of the pioneer settlement of the region, and in the twentieth century they moved to new urban frontiers in Plains cities. As elsewhere in the country, African Americans have been victimized on the Plains, most drastically in the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. But the Great Plains has also seen some of their greatest triumphs, such as the victory in Brown v.

Explanation: The Board of Education of Topeka, which set in process the desegregation of schools. African Americans' triumphs have also been expressed in the people-Malcolm X, Gordon Parks, and Charlie Parker, to mention only a few-who have risen from the Great Plains to make their mark on history. African Americans were not a major presence in the Great Plains until after the end of Reconstruction in 1877, but that does not mean they played an insignificant role in shaping the early history of the region. As early as the 1530s Esteban (Estevanico), an African slave, was a member of the ill-fated expedition of Cabeza de Vaca across the Texas plains. From 1804 to 1806, York, William Clark's slave, was part of the celebrated Lewis and Clark expedition from St. Louis to the Pacific and back. The fur trapper Jim Beckwourth, son of a Virginia plantation owner and a slave woman, first crossed the Great Plains in 1824 heading for the beaver streams of the Rocky Mountains. Beckwourth spent the remaining forty-two years of his life in the Great Plains and elsewhere in the West, living as a trapper, adopted Crow Indian, and guide. Edward Rose was also an African American fur trapper. Rose first went up the Missouri River in 1807, and he remained a key figure in the fur trade until his death at the hands of Arikaras in 1832.

"Aunt" Clara Brown was another African American pioneer. Brown was born a slave in Virginia around 1800 and lived as a slave in Kentucky until she bought her freedom in 1857. Two years later she joined a wagon train of gold prospectors and headed to Denver, where she opened a laundry and established a Sunday school. She was also instrumental in bringing other African Americans to Denver and establishing one of the first black communities on the Plains.

There has, for quite some time, been a significant African American nearness in the Great Plains. African Americans were there in the early long periods of investigation, through the contentions over bondage in Kansas, on the steers' drives, and in the praised dark wilderness regiments.

African Americans were not having a significant nearness in the Great Plains until after the finish of Reconstruction in 1877, yet that doesn't mean they assumed an irrelevant job informing the early history of the area.