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Iowa once had a thriving, majority Black town. Here’s how Buxton celebrated emancipation before Juneteenth
Why Buxton disappeared, and what Iowa can learn from it
Jun. 14, 2024 6:00 am, Updated: Jun. 14, 2024 10:49 am
- Before Juneteenth, people across Iowa celebrated Emancipation Day, a precursor holiday that initially commemorated the freedom of enslaved people in the British West Indies.
- Buxton, a former coal mining town, celebrated Emancipation Day with the distinction of being the only majority Black city in Iowa history.
- Residents of Buxton thrived during the town's short existence, finding access to opportunities they couldn't get in many other places.
- One author said business leaders today can learn from the example of Buxton, where Black leadership and integration found success thanks to a business-oriented mindset.
Decades before Martin Luther King Jr. was born and more than a century before Juneteenth became a federal holiday, towns across Iowa were ahead of the curve in celebrating the emancipation of Black Americans.
Buxton, which started celebrating Emancipation Day in 1901, may not have been the very first in Iowa to do so. But it had a distinction no other city in the state has been able to claim.
With a population nearly 5,000 by the 1905 census, Buxton had a majority Black population. In the Monroe County town, south of more well-known towns like Pella, Oskaloosa and Knoxville, Black residents advanced and thrived alongside white residents in a time well before widespread integration in the United States.
The town became known by some as the “Black utopia” of Iowa.
What was Emancipation Day?
Long before Juneteenth became a holiday to commemorate Union troops delivering news of freedom in Galveston Bay, Texas, towns across the country celebrated Emancipation Day. Unlike Juneteenth, which celebrates the freedom of the last enslaved people remaining in Texas, its precursor celebration commemorated President Abraham Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, signed in 1862, declaring all enslaved people free.
“It was a chance for Black Iowans to say, ‘Look at the progress we’ve made, but how can we keep advancing?’ and invite white people to join them,” said Leo Landis, state curator for the State Historical Society of Iowa. “These were major events that happened all across the state.”
In some Iowa towns, celebration of emancipation started even before the Civil War. In Muscatine, Black residents celebrated the freedom of enslaved people in the British West Indies starting in 1856 as a way to “criticize the persistence of slavery in the ‘land of the free,’” according to Leslie A. Schwalm, author of “Emancipation Day Celebrations: the Commemoration of Slavery and Freedom in Iowa.”
With mentions in interviews of multiple former Buxton residents, Emancipation Day was a big deal, according to Rachelle Chase, author of “Creating the Black Utopia of Buxton, Iowa” and “Images of America: Lost Buxton.” So big that Consolidation Coal Company — the company that helped form Buxton in the first place — gave employees the day off.
After the Civil War, celebrations took off across the state. But, perhaps unlike some Emancipation celebrations, white residents in the Buxton area joined in the celebrations.
“A notable feature of the day was that white people turned out and helped celebrate,” a newspaper in Albia, the seat of Monroe County, reported in 1895.
With the evolution from Emancipation Day to Juneteenth celebrations, Iowans who truly want to understand their state’s history should look to the experience of Black Iowans living here before the 1930s and 1940s, Landis said.
“It was just part of their core,” he said. “If you experienced enslavement or your parents experienced it, this was transformative.”
Their white neighbors, he said, found a way to identify with the struggle because of the loss of soldiers in the Civil War. Iowa was one of the top three states, per capita, to deploy men to fight for the Union.
“They knew the horrific nature (of war),” he said, “and now we had people who had been enslaved and Iowans who fought (against slavery) coming together.”
Want to hear more?
Rachelle Chase, author of two books on Buxton and eight books overall, will be at a book signing from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the African American Museum of Iowa, 55 12th Ave. SE in Cedar Rapids.
The African American Museum of Iowa has Juneteenth events planned through Wednesday. For more information, visit blackiowa.org/events/juneteenth
How was Buxton born, and why didn’t it last?
As Black workers migrated to northern states after the Civil War, they started to notice Iowa as a place that offered a better degree of equality than Southern and some Northern states. By 1868, Black men could vote, and by 1875, Iowa had barred segregation in high schools.
Like many other towns, Buxton was established in 1900 by coal mining. But unlike many other towns, Landis and Chase said, Buxton residents recruited by Consolidation Coal Company were treated equally to white workers with equitable access to opportunities, bank loans and housing.
And unlike many towns, Buxton started from scratch with residents on the same page. Given the proportion of white residents who were immigrants, Landis said entrenched biases weren’t present to the same degree as with others born in America.
“In Buxton, it was different. … It was ahead of its time in so many ways,” Chase said. “It didn’t mean there wasn’t racism. But in a company town built around business, that wasn’t encouraged.”
As Black Americans were being lynched in other parts of the country, interracial marriages were performed in Buxton. As Jim Crow and other discriminatory laws reshaped the American landscape, those who couldn’t accept the possibility of Black neighbors in Buxton were told to leave.
But it was short-lived. By 1927, the company town vanished. As coal mining dried up in Iowa, buildings were taken from their foundations and transported on the last trains out.
Today, the field where Buxton stood is now considered rural Albia.
Standing on business: What we can learn from Buxton
Many years before “diversity, equity and inclusion” became buzzwords for advocacy groups and corporations alike, Black men in Buxton were running the YMCA, managing the company store, selling real estate, working as constables and justices of the peace, and owning over 40 independent businesses in town.
Buxton owed much of its success to the fact that it was so business oriented, Chase said. Leaders had a vested interest in equity.
“You had this coming from the top down, saying this is the way people are going to be treated. If you cannot do that, there are penalties for that,” she said. “We don’t have that today.”
In an environment of political gridlock and tension around promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion, Chase said business leaders can make a big difference in spearheading progress — more than giving lip service to DEI.
“They didn’t have the constraints of getting government and legislative involvement,” she said. “Their motivation for this was (that it) makes good business.”
Today, Chase and Landis said Iowans of any stripe can take a page from Buxton on how to give the same opportunities to everyone — and the profound impact it can have on a community.
“Black people faced discrimination in Iowa, but Buxton showed an opportunity to be majority Black,” Landis said. “It shows us that it can succeed and be a thriving community.”
Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.
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