Former slave founds community

The other night I was Googling myself (don't ask) and ran across a story I wrote last year for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette still posted online. It's about Blackville, a tiny community in Jackson County founded by and named for a former slave, Pickens Black.

Here is part of the story:


Blackville in southern Jackson County was founded and named for a former slave, Pickens Black.

Founded in 1891 by Pickens Black, a former slave who came to Jackson County from Alabama, the community came to be an important area in Jackson County with thriving farms, churches, schools, and even an airport.

Black was 14 when he came to the area after the Civil War. The teenager who worked odd jobs so he could buy a 40-acre farm eventually owned thousands of acres, 8,000 or more, and was one of the more prominent landowners in the area.

The deeds to some of his earliest land purchases were recorded in the Jackson County Courthouse court clerk's office. A large paperboard cutout of Black is now set up in the very same room where Black came to record his purchases. Researchers can take a look at some of Black’s documents in this room, now one of the exhibit rooms at the Jackson County Courthouse Museum.

As his landholdings and farm operations grew, Black employed well over 300 families, both black and white. Although he became one of the area’s largest landholders, Black continued working hard as a farmer. R.C. Laird, a retired farmer, recalled seeing Black working along with everyone else in town.

Read the entire story at the Democrat-Gazette's website.