Editor's Note: This story has been lightly edited from its original publishing in summer 1993.
Each year, on the last weekend in July, Nicodemus stages a homecoming celebration to commemorate the largest, organized, post-Civil War, emigration movement in America.
African Americans from across the United States gather the last weekend in July in the small Graham County community of Nicodemus (population 48) for a very special homecoming. The weekend celebrates the largest, organized, emigration movement in this country after the Civil War - one in which their forebears left the South to make better lives for themselves in the "promised land" of Kansas.
Formerly enslaved people established nearly a dozen settlements in Kansas, but Nicodemus is the only one that survives today. According to a prominent white Kansas newspaperman of the 1880's, "...to those who know the truth of history, the name will always recall the bravest attempt ever made by people of any color to establish homes in the high plains of Kansas."
If the new Kansans had one thing in common, besides their race, it was their poverty. They were often destitute when they arrived and had few skills. Their strength was in their determination to succeed. Few of them regretted leaving the South.
On May 27, 1879, the Topeka Commonwealth printed a letter from the Kansas governor. "...One man was in my office yesterday who has a wife and five children here, and when asked by me if he was furnished transportation and provisions to carry him back to his home in Louisiana, whether he would go, replied that while it was true he was here with his family, entirely destitute of anything to eat or the means to obtain it, yet he would rather himself, wife and children should starve to death here in Kansas than to return and be subjected again to the cruel outrages and wrongs that he and his race had suffered for the last ten years."
Since many of the Nicodemians had spent all their money getting to Kansas, they lacked a number of necessities and food was in short supply. A scarcity of wood prevented them from constructing houses, so they built dugouts, or burrows, in the sides of banks and hills, with spades or grubbing hoes. The roofs over their heads consisted of poles or brush topped with earth.
As the settlement became more permanent the new Kansans erected "soddies," the traditional homes of most early prairie settlers. These were dugouts excavated three or four feet into the earth and finished above with blocks of sod taken from the surrounding land.
Nicodemus' post office opened in 1878 and the first in 1879. The mild winter of 1879-1880was a boon to the settlers, making it possible for them to plow most of the time. And they did, turning virgin earth with ordinary spades.
The hard work of the Nicodemians did not go unnoticed by their white neighbors. As the Smith County Pioneer of March 21,1879, noted, the settlers "know how to work, and are not afraid to do it."
By 1880, nearly 500 African American inhabitants, were established in Graham County. Nicodemus' growth and prosperity led to the opening of a number of businesses there. Z.T. Fletcher's general store was the first. Anderson Boles operated the Douglass House where a good meal and a bed for the night cost 50 cents. Two other hotels also opened.
Although Nicodemus continued to grow until 1910, topping out at nearly 600 citizens, the boom year of 1897 also was the year the community's fate was sealed. Nicodemians, like citizens in many other towns throughout the state, had high hopes that either the Missouri Pacific or the Union Pacific railroads would lay track through their community. The railroads opted for routes elsewhere which, in those days,was considered the kiss of death for a community. A town without a main line or a spur had no future.
When Nicodemus was at its peak, Graham County's African Americans played a major role in the politics of the area. Not only did they show up to vote, they contributed able leaders to county and state government. They were no longer afraid to speak their minds, or go to the polls, for fear of retribution. For the first time, they had true representation.
As Graham County's white-owned Millbrook Times reminded its readers, in November of 1879, "every fair minded voter will concede that Nicodemus and the colored people are entitled to a portion of the (county) officers." Three were elected.
The most prominent of all African American politicians to emerge from Nicodemus was E.P. McCabe. A native New Yorker, he left a successful career in Chicago to join the Kansas settlers. Elected secretary of the town company, he served in that capacity until the group was disbanded.
In 1880, Governor John Pierce St. John appointed McCabe temporary county clerk, a position he was elected to in 1881. His political aspirations were higher, though, and in 1882 he announced his candidacy for state auditor. He won.
Reelected in 1884, McCabe sought a third term but was denied the nomination. Thus, he thought, ended the political career of the first African American to hold a high elective office in a northern state. His abilities were brought to the attention of Governor George W. Steel of the Oklahoma Territory, however, and in 1897 he was appointed auditor there. He held the post until the coming of statehood there in 1907.
Those African Americans who emigrated to Kansas in the years 1879 to 1880 were labeled "Exodusters." This coined term took note that theirs was a migratory movement and their skills were primarily tied to the land, being agricultural in nature. The label is proudly used by their descendants to this day.
Juanita Redd was born in a Nicodemus "soddie" and has lived there all her 84 years. Her father, Henry Williams, was the first child born in the community. She delights in the July festivities surrounding what is officially called the "Emancipation Celebration" but informally known as "Homecoming."
"I remember as a girl we always had good times here even though no one had anything," she said. "Everyone was equal. We had fun at church and Sunday school and, when the W.P.A.(Works Progress Administration) built the town hall in 1939 people came from miles around to dance to a band 'til the wee hours."
The town hall still stands. There's also a church, the senior citizen apartments across the road, some houses, trailers and vacant buildings. All the community's businesses have closed-the last, several years ago when Ernestine Van Duvall closed the doors on her popular barbecue restaurant and retired.
Fred Switzer, Nicodemus' self-proclaimed mayor, is optimistic his town will make a comeback. "Alot of people went away from here for jobs but now that they're retiring they're coming home," he said. "I look for about three or four trailer houses to be parked here soon. It's not much for some people but for us it's a lot. Who knows?
"We're also getting a lot of tourists through here," he continued. "Maybe we'll get another restaurant, a gas station or even a motel." For now, though, Nicodemus is a place for memories. People attending the celebration share them.
"It was a good place for me to grow up in," said Veryl Switzer who left to play football in the 1960's at Kansas State University. 'The hard work ethic was taught here early on in life and I didn't think anything about putting in ten-to-12-hour days on the farm. It was a simple life-and my horizons were small. To me the sun rose in Stockton and set in Hill City."
Nicodemus has been recognized nationally as a historic landmark since 1976 and current proposed legislation will designate it as a National Historic Site. The 116th Emancipation Celebration will be July 30, 31 and August 1 of this year.
Curiously, the name of the Graham County community was not, as many believe, derived from the biblical Nicodemus. Rather, it was a tribute to a legendary slave and prophet who reportedly arrived on the second slave ship to reach America and was the first enslaved person to purchase his freedom.
