Information about Buxton, Iowa by Rachelle Chase
In 2022, I was honored to be included in the following documentaries, talking about Buxton. The African American Midwest: A 500 Year Fight for Freedom As stated in “The 1539 Project: Why Black Midwest and Iowa history matters,” producers of “The African American Midwest” hope to show that the Midwest is not only America’s geographic […]
I believe we need to talk about Buxton, Iowa now—and I would love to chat with you (and up to 9 others) about it live via Zoom. Why should you want to do that? Because Buxton is relevant today. In 1900, at a time when Jim Crow, racism, social injustice, police brutality, murder of and […]
Rarely do I find photos of Buxton I’ve never seen before. Rarer still do I find them in my inbox. But today I did, thanks to Alisa Corstorphine. “I didn’t know if they were unique but I knew they were important,” said Alisa, referring to the Buxton images. After going through her mother’s photos and […]
Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19th, commemorates the end of slavery—specifically, June 19, 1865, the day Union soldiers traveled through Galveston, Texas announcing that the Civil War had ended and enslaved African Americans were free. While I have not yet found any indication of Juneteenth celebrations in Buxton, I discovered that Buxton residents (and other Iowans) […]
Recently, protestors have begun demanding to defund or abolish police departments. Today, as I watched Trevor Noah on “The Daily Show” recap the changes that have already begun as a result of the protests, I was surprised to learn what was happening in Minneapolis. The Minneapolis City Council is already looking to disband its police […]
While anxiously awaiting Netflix’s release of “Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madame C.J. Walker,” the question popped into my head, “Had Madam C.J. Walker ever visited Buxton, Iowa?” The question was a plausible one. People—especially African Americans—beyond Iowa had heard of this amazing town. Buxton was a coal mining town of 5,000 residents […]
Lottie Armstrong Baxter, a daughter of successful African American businessman Hobe Armstrong, was born in Muchakinock, Iowa in March 1876. When she was fifteen, she graduated from a business school and began her career with the Consolidation Coal Company, first working as a secretary for superintendent J.E. Buxton. On February 27, 1901, she married John […]