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 […]
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 […]
While researching how African Americans ended up being 55% of the population in Buxton, Iowa—which was established by Consolidation Coal Company—I did not expect to discover that one of the men who’d recruited African Americans to work in the company’s mines was Major Thomas Shumate, a Confederate officer. Within five to six years of establishing […]
Senator Cory Booker included Buxton, Iowa—the integrated coal mining town of 5,000 where, in 1900, blacks and whites were treated equal—in his talks this past weekend. In his keynote speech at Friday’s Iowa Democratic Party Fall Gala, he mentioned the black and white women of Buxton who’d quilted together. “Those women knew what we must […]