Black History Month: Highlighting black Montanans throughout history

While Montana is not the whitest state in the nation, it is statistically the least black. Due to this, notable black Montanans throughout the state’s history tend to get swept under the rug and are not given the credit they have earned and deserve. The Exponent has chosen to highlight these individuals and the organizations they’ve begun in honor of Black History Month.

Black Montanans throughout history

Samuel Lewis

A Haitian-born Montanan, Lewis moved to Bozeman early in his life with his parents. He went on to work as a barber with a shop on Main Street before later becoming a well-recognized and sought-after carpenter in the Bozeman area in the 1860s. Lewis helped construct several Bozeman buildings, including two residences still standing on South Tracy, and his Bozeman residence is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. He passed away in 1866, and the mayor of Bozeman at the time was one of his pallbearers at the funeral.

Mattie Bost

Bost was a Montanan who married white citizen John Castner. They built the first cabin in Belt, Montana, which eventually became a hotel, restaurant and stage station that Bost ran while Castner built up mining and real estate holdings throughout the area. She later operated a cattle ranch in the Highwood Mountains, and was well-recognized throughout the state due to her generosity. When Bost passed away in 1920, her estate was worth over $25,000, which is just over $300,000 today.

James Presley (J.P.) Ball Sr.

Following his work as an abolitionist, daguerreotypist and entrepreneur in both Cincinnati and Minneapolis, Ball moved to Helena in 1887. There, he became a leader among the city’s African-American population while also serving as the president of Helena’s Afro-American Club. He became an esteemed photographer in Montana, capturing events such as the laying of the Capitol Building foundation. His photographs can be viewed at library.cincymuseum.org/ball/jpball.htm.

Sally Gammon Bickford

Following the death of her husband Stephen in 1900, Bickford became the owner and operator of the Virginia City Water Company, which she ran until her death in 1931. The Virginia City Water Company was the primary source of freshwater to the area during the mining boom.

Arthur C. Ford

Ford graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from Montana State College (MSU) in 1916, making him the school’s first black graduate. He went on to become the president of New York City’s Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity, making him the first African-American to be appointed commissioner of a New York City agency. Ford passed away in 1985 at the age of 93.

Alma Jacobs

Jacobs was appointed as Montana’s State Librarian in 1973, a post she held until 1981. Before that, she served as director of the Great Falls Library, during which time she played a crucial role in helping establish a new building for the institution in 1967. She was born in Lewistown in 1916. Jacobs was openly outspoken about black rights in Montana and nationally, and once stated, “I think a person, whether he is Negro or whatever, is entitled to his own life, without being dumped into a group with predetermined characteristics.” Jacobs passed away in 1997.

Organization, Groups and Clubs

In 1894, Montana’s first black-run newspaper, The Colored Citizen, was published in Helena. The newspaper ran from Sept. 3 to Dec. 15 of that year, and they operated primarily to advance the city’s case for designation as the state capital. The Colored Citizen was one of three newspapers founded in Montana. The other two, The New Age and Montana Plaindealer, were also established in Helena and Butte. In the 1890s, the African-American population represented 1 percent of the state’s total. Helena was known as one of the more tolerant cities in Montana, with one of the most active African-American communities. James Presley Ball, Jr., the editor of The Colored Citizen, set out to influence his community to vote for Helena as the state’s capital. Ultimately, the election decided Helena as the capital. The Colored Citizen’s efforts were essential in this outcome.

Butte’s black residents established the Afro-American Club of Butte City in 1896 to become a central social outlet for the town’s black citizens to pursue their interests in music, literature and science. Citizens of Anaconda founded the A.J. Campbell Afro American Club in their city two years later. Later, The New Age was established and published from May 1902, to February 1903. This paper served to represent the interests of the black residents of Butte. In the inaugural edition, editors John W. Duncan and Chris Dorsey declared their intention to establish a statewide network of reporters dedicated to bringing the news of the African-American community throughout Montana to readers in Butte.

In 1916, an African Methodist Episcopal Church congregation organized in Billings and met at 302 North 24th Street in Wayman Chapel. The church building moved to the south side shortly after, and members of the congregation continued to serve the Billings community until 2013.  

Montana Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs

The efforts of African-American women in Montana did not go unnoticed. Their contributions are a reflection of the bigger acts of social justice known to America’s history — the acts of Rosa Parks and Maya Angelou happened on a greater scale, but these small scale efforts were just as important. It addressed Montana specifically, fighting the negative stereotypes that were assigned to black people. One such organization that created a sense of community and addressed these issues was the Montana State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. These were social clubs throughout Montana created with the undertaking of working-class black mothers and homemakers to address the negative views forced upon them.

At its start in 1921, the board members of these clubs were ordinary women who banded together and wrote to their congressman and Senators, shedding light on the social injustices present in their cities.

According to the Montana’s African American Heritage Resources Project, these women’s clubs engaged politically and “[promoted] the respectability of the African-American people in the eyes of the larger society than many of the men’s clubs.” At its heart, these clubs worked to give back to the African-American community in their cities. They set up fundraisers to establish scholarships for local students to go to school, built nurseries and set up daycares.

Following the Great Depression, many African-American families left Montana in search of more opportunity. The Montana State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs suffered, but they continued to make progress with the number of women that remained. In 1963, the organization voted to use the money they had raised as scholarships should the organization perish. Unfortunately, the Montana State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs had their final conference in 1972, ending 51 years of activism and civil service for their fellow African-American communities.

All information has been gathered from mhs.mt.gov/Shpo/AfricanAmericans/History/Timeline.