Canyon Hotel Waiters and Yellowstone River, c. 1896, Yellowstone National Park, Elliott W. Hunter. H-3675. Montana Historical Society Research Center Photograph Archives, Helena, MT.

AFRICAN AMERICANS and MONTANA’s criminal justice system A HISTORICAL TIMELINE compiled and edited by julia C. Sherman Additional advisory and editorial support from University of Montana’s Tobin Miller Shearer and Montana Historical Society’s Kate Hampton

Made possible with generous support from the African-American Studies Program at the University of Montana, the Demers/Price Family Endowment for Montana History, and the Montana Justice Initiative Claude Adams before intake process at Deer Lodge Penitentiary, ca. 1900. MHS 950-006. Montana Historical Society Research Center Photograph Archives, Helena, MT.

1889-1921 1864

• Helena, MT, established as a gold mining camp

• Secretary of the Interior makes contact with Detroit House of Correction and Iowa Penitentiary to house territorial prisoners with sentences of 2+ years

• May 26, 1864: Montana Territory created by an Act of Congress via the Montana Organic Act - The decision as to which federal laws were applicable was left to Territorial courts—the U.S. Supreme Court took over the “task” when it came to African American rights.1

• First session of Montana Legislature: - “Every white male inhabitant over the age of twenty-one years, who shall have paid or be liable to pay any district tax, shall be a legal voter at any school meeting, and no other person shall be allowed to vote.”2

• African Americans limited from being witnesses at trial - Cannot be witnesses against white litigants, only against members of their own race

• Racial exclusion from jury services - Only those who could vote could serve on a jury

• Racial restrictions on school board elections: - 1864-5 Council Journal (C.J.) 57, 109-110, 123 - 1864-5 House Journal (H.J.) 135 - 1864-5 C.J. 209, 27 - 1864 T. Laws 443 (Only white males allowed to vote in school elections) 1865

• First wave of postbellum African-American migration west 1866

• Attempt to pass an anti-miscegenation law (House Bill 27) fails

3 • Congressman Benjamin Wade claims the Montana Territory to be in a “state of anarchy” 1867

• African-American men vote for the first time in Helena, MT

• Congress passes Territorial Suffrage Act, giving African Americans in territories the right to vote

• Helena Election Riot of 1867 - Montana Territory’s leading city, Helena, decides to experiment with black voting in city elections; encouraged by the Republican administration in Washington - “Gangs of Democatic roughs circulated through town warning African Americans from the polls and threatening violence should they attempt to vote.”4 - An African American murdered in Helena, MT, “on mere suspicion that he intended to vote in that day’s election.” • Killer jailed by Deputy Marshall X; when murderer broke jail no reward offered for his capture, and the incident was shrugged off5

• Territorial Governor Green Clay Smith suggests to the legislature that a penitentiary site be established to save expense to the counties, the territory, and the government. - Virginia City newspaper supports this, pointing out that the more convicts within the prison, the more self-sustaining, and more able to produce revenue for the state • suggesting the need for a more complete penitentiary system, specifically one big enough to enforce adequate amount of labor

• Proposed bill forbidding whites to cohabit with Native Americans, Chinese, or “persons of African descent” - Marriage/cohabitation of whites with African Americans or Chinese viewed as an, “evil and disgusting violation of natural law”6

• By 1867, punishment as a means of raising revenue for the state and offsetting costs of incarceration to the new territory (and others) was becoming alluring. • A black clergyman, Mclaughlin, with several black families, organizes a church society in Helena, MT. - Prospers in Helena throughout the 1870s

3 • Congressman Benjamin Wade claims the Montana Territory to be in a “state of anarchy” 1869

• Department of the Interior administration changes - Initially created to oversee and administer the expanding territorial empire, the Department of the Interior was tasked with governing and administering institutions, like the developing prison institutions, within the western territories7

- January 1867: the Department of the Interior is tasked by Congress with the administration of the Territorial Penitentiaries Act • $40,000 would be financed per facility within the territories by way of internal revenue within the territories (1865-1868)8 - $40,000, even in the 1860s, was not nearly enough money to build and operate a prison facility— the prison system, from the beginning, was expected to pay for itself

- With the administration change, communication between the Interior Department and Montana prison contractors became worse and, after two years of unproductive development, the Department of Justice was created • The Department of Justice was put in charge of all territorial penitentiaries - By 1871, all authority had been transferred to the new department - federal marshalls would be in charge of the new penitentiaries and would appoint wardens as needed9

1870

• Helena, MT’s last lynching - Vigilantes dispatch two suspected criminals in front of the Helena courthouse10

• Census: - 183 African Americans, 20,595 Total Population Hanging execution of African-American William Biggerstaff. At left is Reverend Victor Day, at right is Sheriff J. Henry Jurgens, Helena, MT, in April 1896. MHS 957-611. Montana Historical Society Research Center Photograph Archives, Helena, MT.

VIGILANTISM AND LYNCHING IN MONTANA • Background on Lynching and Vigilantism: - Vigilantism was rampant in the United States territories11 • territories were removed from the constituted power of the courts and government and vigilance action was put into the hands of the people

- The economic costs and immediacy of the Civil War took attention away from Montana Territory, leaving the issues of law enforcement up to civilians when dealing with civil and criminal disputes12 - Gold played a pivotal role as a profit motivator for vigilantism within mining communities; it was not uncommon for criminals to steal gold in whatever ways they could • In a single month in 1864 in Montana - local vigilance committees publicly hanged 25 suspected criminals13 • By the late 1860s - the federal government established judicial influence in Montana territory - political officials and wealthy entrepreneurs saw the benefits of establishing a prison system in Montana and lobbies for the U.S. to fund and construct a federal prison14 Vigilantism & Lynching Continued

• The three main factors that upheld vigilantism, according to author Mark C. Dillon, were: 1. the value and importance of gold 2. insecurity in transporting wealth by horse/stage coach 3. the absence of effective police, prosecutorial, and judicial resources15

• The Territorial Penitentiary Act was passed in Congress in 1867, permitting Nebraska, Colorado, Montana, Arizona, Washington, and Dakota territories to construct their own penitentiaries

• By the late 1860s and 1870s, the U.S. Congress appropriated money for the construction of penitentiaries throughout western territories in response to vigilantism16

• The Prison System’s impact on Vigilantism - With the establishment of the Montana territorial prison, vigilantism virtually disappeared17 - After statehood, physical structures for punishment grew rapidly

• Lynching throughout the United States - disenfranchisement and the spread of Jim Crow segregation laws increase the number of lynchings in the 1890s18 - the gains of Reconstruction (especially the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments) altered social dynamics throughout the South (and the rest of the country) and whites responded with public backlash in the form of lynching - In the early 1900s, we start to see a noticeable migration in African Americans out West19

• Lynching in Montana - Lynching was a common form of vigilantism justice and as African Americans traveled westward escaping the horrors of lynchings and racial injustices of the South, they were often framed as criminals and publicly dealt with via lynchings or hangings20 • By the late 1860s - the federal government established judicial influence in Montana territory - political officials and wealthy entrepreneurs saw the benefits of establishing a prison system in Montana and lobbies for the U.S. to fund and construct a federal prison14 1871

21 • Movement from vigilance to sanctioned incarceration with the completion of the penitentiary

• Deer Lodge Penitentiary is completed. July 2, 1871: first 9 inmates are received: - 2 Chinese immigrants - Miner from Wales - 2 former slaves - 4 white men22 1872 • Montana territorial legislature passes a law segregating black children in public schools

23 • Helena, MT, has largest African-American population in Montana

• Justice Department starts reconsidering federal government’s involvement in financing western penitentiaries - Justice and Interior Departments take steps to turn over financial and administrative operation of penitentiaries to respective territories (Idaho and Colorado penitentiaries were costing more than anticipated)24 1873 • Montana Territory assumes control of prison

• Deer Lodge economy proves too weak to be self-sustaining

25 • Warden C.B. Adriance keeps inmates employed through furniture building and woodworking 1874 • Montana legislature petitions Congress to reassume management of Deer Lodge institution because it is too burdensome. Congress assents. Aerial View of Deer Lodge City from Southeast, Grant-Kohrs Ranch, Highway 10, Deer Lodge, Powell County, MT. Date Unknown Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS MONT, 39-DELO, 1--2. deer lodge MONTANA

Establishment of Deer Lodge Penitentiary

• Samuel T. Hauser and associates (fellow investors and wealthy entrepreneurs) see the benefits a territorial penitentiary would provide and attempt to capitalize on the opportunity26

• Hauser purchases property in Argenta and begins lobbying for a prison; soon thereafter relocated to Deer Lodge Valley, “where whites were well established with farms and ranches”27

• Deer Lodge noted as a “burgeoning poplutation center”28

• Political and economic advantages of settlement in Montana would lead to statehood for the Montana Territory, as well as less federal intervention in Montana’s affairs29

• Deer Lodge Penitentiary is the 2nd western territorial penitentiary to open under the 1867 Congressional Act DEER LODGE PENITENTIARY Continued

DISPROPORTIONATE CRIMINALIZATION BASED ON RACE

• According to Edgerton, the racial and immigrant composition at Deer Lodge Penitentiary “closely mirrored the general population” prior to Montana receiving statehood status - Prison census between 1871-1885: 41 out of a population of 382 (11%) were categorized as ‘Chinese’,’Negro’, ‘Indian’, or ‘Mexican’30 • African Americans made up approximately 2.3% of the Prison Population between 1871-188531 - Though there was a general mirroring of the racial/immigrant composition in prison, African Americans made up a higher percentage of the prison population than was reflected in their general population in Montana (0.89% in 1870 and 0.88% in 1880)32

BEFORE STATEHOOD

• Before statehood, Montana Territory was essentially too poor to keep individuals incarcerated for long (because of lack of funds, space, and staff) - The governor pardoned individuals regularly in order to clear additional space African American Female Prisoners • Though there was racial discrimination present within the system it was not reflected to the AT DEER LODGE PENITENTIARY degree that took place after statehood (Continued on Page 20, ‘Montana, Before and After Statehood’)

AFTER STATEHOOD

• Systemized incarceration on the basis of race increased in Montana prison after the state received more funding and financial support from the federal government • Beforehand, the prison couldn’t financially afford to racially discriminate to the degree most other penitentiary systems were across the rest of the country33 (Continued on Page 20, ‘Montana, Before and After Statehood’) Female inmates at Deer Lodge Penitentiary, from left to right, starting at top left: Alta Jackson (1909), Olivet Fields (1921), Mary Johnson (1934), Josephine Enoex (1916), Frances Boyer (1953), Mable Garner (1926), Jypsie Deen (1923), Florence Ford (1918). “Montana State Prison Records, 1871-1981” SMF 36. Courtesy of Montana Historical Society. African American Female Prisoners AT DEER LODGE PENITENTIARY • Though the prison make up was majority male there were females incarcerated at Deer Lodge Penitentiary - After statehood, not only did the number of women prisoners in Deer Lodge rise, but the number of African-American women incarcerated rose to make up a significant and disproportionaltely high percentage of female prisoners34 • Female prison census, 1888-1910: - 23 African American women among the 60 female prisoners (of which, ten were white and 27 remain unidentified) - Most African American women arrested were “young, uneducated women with negligable resources”35 (Continued on Page 20, ‘Montana, Before and After Statehood’)

• Throughout the West black women made up a disproportionate amount of the female prison population, with charges often connected to the domestic services they performed36 Samuel T.

Hauser Samuel T. Hauser. No date. Photographer unknown. NPS Photo from Yellowstone’s Photo Collection Library. Establishment of Deer Lodge Penitentiary

• Personal incentive to attract more investment to Montana37

• Hauser makes note that, “the labor of convicts could be made profitable”38

• Deer Lodge, MT, proved to have “more mines and agricultural activity” than Argenta and was growing in size39

• Prisons were viewed as a necessary institution for territories in order to solve issues of crime and “minimize the increasing expense of confinement”40 - Hauser saw the opportunity to lobby for the building of a penitentiary, mainly based on the notion that there would be money in it for him41 1875 • The pro-African-American leaders in Congress, despairing of the 14th Amendment because of what the courts were doing to it, “took up the matter themselves and passed the Civil Rights Act of that year.”42 - By 1883 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this act was unconstitutional—this then opened the door for legalized segregation

• May 20th, 1875, Helena Weekly Herald, “The Warl Murder”: William Stears’ (African American) trial for murder.

• July 1st, 1875, Helena Weekly Herald, “Two Murders”: William Stears is sentenced to hang on August 14th.

• August 13th, 1875, Bozeman Avant Courier, “New Trial for Stears”: Supreme Court grants Stears a new trial because they never said which degree of murder he was charged with.

• September 23rd, 1875, Helena Weekly Herald, “Sterres”: Stears is found guilty of first degree murder during his second trial and he is sentenced to death on October 28th.

• November 4th, 1875, Helena Weekly Herald, “The Gallows”: On the execution of Stears.

• Helena school board reorganized their schools, establishing the South Side School for the 19 school-aged African-American children in Helena43 The STEARS TRIAL • A historically significant legal case on the trial and conviction and execution of William H. Stears, in August 1875, for the murder of Franz Ward, a charcoal burner in the Ten-Mile county, Lewis and Clark county

• The first execution for murder in the Montana Territory, upon the verdict of a lawful jury and sentence of a lawful court

• Joseph K. Tool, the prosecuting attorney for the county, acted in Stears’ defense

• Trial Result: - guilty verdict, followed with death sentence - verdict did not specify the degree of the crime committed, and was therefore, “uncertain for the reason that under such an indictment murder in the first or second degree, or manslaughter, to be included”44 - on appeal, the verdict was set aside (probably because it did not prove to be very concrete) - all of this suggests that the court did not have concrete evidence that Stears did indeed murder Ward45 1876 • Petition protesting segregation laws in Montana presented to Territorial Legislature - Signed by 106 black and white Helena residents - Legislature rejects petition - Black community continues to protest (including editor of Helena Daily Herald) 1877

• Asylum is built in Warm Springs, MT - MT territory contracted with penitentiary-affliated physicians (A.H. Mitchell and Charles Musigbrod) for a site that addressed psychiatric problems of Montana Territory’s mentally ill - Built 15 miles south of the penitentiary - Managed by private individuals until 1912 (made a lot of money off of the high numbers of patients and the cost-saving measures of overcrowding) - Aslyms proved to be “another attempt by the state to impose regimentation and order upon the disordered for which it cared”46 1879 TRANSFORMATION IN HOW MONTANA DISPENSED CRIMINAL JUSTICE

• The black fraternal order, The Lodge of Good Templars, is organized by 20 Helena African Americans

• The South Side School, in Helena, MT, is maintained with only nine pupils attending47 1880 • Census: - 346 African Americans, 39,159 Total Population Montanan criminal justice of the 1880s & 1890s

Convicts from Greene County Prison Camp, Georgia, Jack Delano. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-fsa-8a35499. TRANSFORMATION IN HOW MONTANA DISPENSED CRIMINAL JUSTICE

• U.S. economic boom (fueled by the railroad and the mining industry)

• Courts were incarcerating more individuals; it was cheaper for Montana to house prisoners during this time

• Warden Frank Conley and his partner Thomas McTague had the power to lower the rates for prison finances charged to the state - By 1893, the rate was dropped to $0.40 a day, per person • Republican statesmen pushed their desire to build a strong party in the South and were unsuccessful, thus the appeal of the West was strong48

• By 1890, black settlers were living in every Montana county and by 1930 eleven of the state’s fifty-six counties, “had been entirely cleared of African Americans,” while few remained in the remaining counties49 Convicts from the Greene County Prison Camp in Georgia, Jack Delano. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC-USF33-020875-M1 [P&P] LOT 1560.

National atrocities toward African Americans 1880s and onward

• Leading up to the 1880s - Following emancipation in 1865 slavery went by another name: convict leasing

• Mainly practiced in southern states, convict leasing provided prison labor to private parties (plantation farmers, corporations, white-owned companies powered by manual labor, etc.) and served as a new social order that upheld slavery50

• The goal of convict leasing was to separate the races, uphold white supremacy, and create economic development statewide for the white community

• Convict leasing was used as a means of exploiting the penal system in order to enforce “racial subjugation and control”51

• Between 1880 and 1900 - 3,011 African Americans are lynched across the U.S., a majority of these in the South52

- Racial injustice escalates to the point that an author labels it “cradle to grave” segregation”53 1881 • U.S. Marshal’s servant, William Woodcock, sues Butte restaurant under 1875 Civil Rights Act after he was asked to move tables 1882

• Referendum passed to end segregated schools in Helena, MT - This was due to “lower voter turnout, reluctance to continue the high taxes caused by the system, and a heavy turnout of black voters”; Helena votes 195 to 115 against mandating the dual school system54 1883

• U.S. Supreme Court faces matter of African-American rights in territories when the Civil Rights Act comes up on appeal in United States v. Singleton55 - Court postpones decision and contents itself with the assertion that Congress had plenary powers in the territories, suggesting that the act could be made applicable there if not in the states56

• Territorial legislature repeals segregation law for entire territory

• William Woodcock wins lawsuits over Butte restaurant and receives $500

• Governor John Crosby takes office and addresses Montana’s prison congestion in Deer Lodge - Crosby recommends to Congress that Montana, “authorities contract with authorities in older states for the keeping of its long-term convicts – at a saving of expense and under better discipline”57

• Montana legislature passes a bill prohibiting racial segregation in schools -Throughout that difficult ten-year period, Helena’s African-American population “stood on their rights and demanded integration in the schools.”58 1884

• August 9th, 1884, The Glendive Times, “Locals Itemized”: “A colored cowboy” named Austin shot a man named Dempsey of Miles City. There was an attempted lynching. “Negro has no business here,” newspaper reports.

• Congress allocates $15,000 for enlarging prison and Governor Crosby authorizes funds to be used to construct central offices and warden’s quarter59 1885

• U.S. Attorney General intervenes and orders halt to further increase in incarceration in Montana until the Department of the Interior can complete the construction of the penitentiary (began in 1870)

• Following the Attorney General’s intervention, Congress allocates another $25,000 for Deer Lodge Penitentiary construction60 1886

• Capacity of prisons in Montana triples

• U.S. penitentiary at Deer Lodge officially completed - By the end of the year, Deer Lodge Penitentiary exceeds capacity 1887 61 • White mob from Sun River, MT, lynches a young black soldier from Fort Shaw 1888 62 • Reverend James Hubbard establishes the Saint James A.M.E. Church in Helena, MT Saint James A.M.E. CHURCH

32 African-Americans attend the 13th convention of the Montana Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs outside of the St. James African American Episcopal Church (A.M.E.), Helena, MT, 1933. MHS PAc 96-25.4. Montana Historical Society Research Center Photograph Archives, Helena, MT. Frank Conley on the Deer Lodge Prison Farm Grounds. Date Unkown. Image 562- 05-14. Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana. Montana Before and After Statehood

TRANSFORMATION IN MONTANA’s incarceration

• before statehood: - Montana Territory incarcerates its inhabitants at the 3rd highest rate per capita in the nation - Montana territorial government used prison as a cheap means to attempt to instill in its lower- class criminals self-discipline and labor habits (though this was generally the case in prisons across the country) - 1871-1885: Of the 29 individuals who were convicted for murder, only 1 served complete sentence • uneven and inconsistent punishment - Nonwhites received gubernatorial pardons at about the same rate as the general prison population63

• After Statehood: - Physical structures within the prison grew rapidly - Number of women prisoners in Deer Lodge rose - Montana incarcerates a “significant and disproportionately high” number ofAfrican American women64 - Systemized incarceration on the basis of race increased in Montana prison after the state received more funding and financial support from the federal government; beforehand the prison couldn’t financially afford to racially discriminate - Ranching property was purchased west of Deer Lodge (eventually growing to 23,000 acres). Inmate labor was used to harvest grain and vegetables, and to raise cattle, chickens, and hogs. Claude Adams after intake process at Deer Lodge Penitentiary, ca. 1900. MHS 950-007. Montana Historical Society Research Center Photograph Archives, Helena, MT.

1889-1921 1889 • Montana becomes 41st state

• Board of Prison Commissioners enters into a contractual lease agreement with Frank Conley - The state owned the land, the prison, and the property, but Conley and Mctague ran the prison, earning $0.70 per prisoner per day for the first 100 prisoners and$1.00 for every prisoner per day above 100 prisoners65 - The state immediately benefits from this arrangement because the Montana governor no longer held responsibility over incarceration • At this point only two individuals (McTague and Conley) were in charge of Montana criminals at Deer Lodge, meaning they were also the only ones in charge of setting the fee per prisoner (and with the economic boom of the 1880s, it became cheaper to house prisoners and, thus, make more money off of them)66

• Montana constitution creates a Board of Prison Commissioners - Board of Prison Commissioners includes: governor, secretary of state, and attorney general - No longer any warden at the institution (the U.S. supplied one to Montana between 1871-1890)67 1890 • Robert P. Falkner (University of Pennsylvania professor) proposes a new method within the prison system - This new method was able to account for new offenders who had served a short sentences but had not been released before the census enumeration68 - Falkner concludes that the 1890 census distorts criminal tendencies of different groups • According to Falkner, ”blacks were shown to have committed more crimes than their total share and immigrants fewer”69

70 • By 1890, black settlers were living in every Montana county 1892 • Conley and McTague purchase ranch outside Deer Lodge and use inmates to raise produce to feed prison population71

• Commissioners justify increased labor at the prison, with the belief that industry was “one of the first lessons that should be taught in prison”— work was viewed as one of the main ways of reforming those “uncivil” citizens imprisoned who was frank conley?

Frank Conley portrait. MHS 941-566. Courtesy of the Montana Historical Society Research Center Photograph Archives, Helena, MT.

• 1884 - Conley becomes a member of the Central Montana vigilance committee

• 1886 - At 22 years old Conley becomes Deputy Sheriff of Custer County, MT

• Late 1886 - Conley takes a position as a Prison Guard at the Deer Lodge Penitentiary72

• 1890, After Statehood - Frank Conley ascends to the position of Warden of the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge, MT. • United States turns over the federal penitentiary at Deer Lodge to the new state, and the Board of Prison Commissioners enters a contractual lease arrangement with Frank Conley and his business partner, Thomas McTague.73 frank conley Continued

• Under Frank Conley, the prison population increased alongside inmate work productivity - In most 19th century prisons in the United States, wardens and prison administrators would utilize physical labor as a means of punishment and reformation

• Inmate labor not only benefitted the penetentiary’s profits in this sense, but it also boosted the Montanan economy - Prisoners at Deer Lodge Penitentiary were being utilized for their free labor and were quite literally building their own prison.74

• Conley took advantage of prison labor to build and expand prison grounds as well as run eleven separate ranches and farms to produce food for the prisoners. - In addition to prison-related buildings and production, Conley used prison labor to build 11 buildings for the Montana State Hospital, 4 buildings for the Montana State Tuberculosis Sanatorium, and over 500 miles of roads in the state.75 Frank Conley and his history of racial discrimination

Portrait of Young Frank Conley. Date Unknown. Photographer Unknown. Image 562-05-14. Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana.

• Correspondence between Conley and others reveals Conley’s racial bias, along with his tendency to deny parole and the release of individuals he unilaterally deemed threats to society - To his Chief of Police, Conley often wrote of African Americans in a derogatory and racist manner: • referring to Charles Smith, an African American man accused of burglary, as a “bad nigger that needed to be taken care of”76

• in a letter to a woman in a romantic relationship with a black man, Conley wrote of the man as “a half- baked nigger that [he] wouldn’t waste any time with”77

• regarding the local African American mail carrier (working outside the prison), Oscar Johnson, Conley learned that Johnson had sent a white woman a note to set up a date. To this, Conley responded, “If [John- son] had been successful in getting [the woman] to keep the appointment, I feel sure I would have had a rape case on my hands.” Conley then reassigned Johnson back inside the prison.78 African-American inmates at Deer Lodge Penitentiary, from left to right, starting at top left: Edna Roberts (1929), Dominc Lewwues (1934), Hugh McNorton (1909), William Collins (1940), Clifford Franklin (1936), Anna Young (1932), Sam Salvatore DiPasquale Jr. (1945), George Cooley (1930), Alexander Diggens (1933), Junius Foster (1917), Christ Porter (1938), Florence Miller (1918). “Montana State Prison Records, 1871-1981.” Courtesy of Montana Historical Society. 1892 • January 1, 1892 - Black community of Great Falls, MT commemorates the anniversary of Emancipation Day by giving a grand ball and banquet • 200+ African Americans attend79

• Ida B. Wells publishes Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases - Wells’ findings defied most whites’ understanding of lynching—before her “few white people questioned the claim that the ‘majority’ of lynchings in the country were ‘undoubtedly’ the result of rape committed by black men”80 - Wells is described as “the first authority among Afro-Americans on lynching and mob violence,” by the Colored American Magazine in 190281 1893 • African-American Emma Wall and her white husband, John Orr, marry in Glendive. A mob forms and gives them 24 hours to leave.82

83 • Deer Lodge penitentiary population at 300+ 1894 • Ida B. Wells publishes A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1893-1894 - a 100-page pamphlet describing lynching in the U.S. since the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 - Wells notes that, since slavery time, “ten thousand Negroes have been killed in cold blood, [through lynching] without the formality of judicial trial and legal execution.”84

• First African American elected into public office in Montana — William M. Morgan, elected as constable in Great Falls, MT

• First African American-published newspaper in Montana, The Colored Citizen: Devoted to the Interests of Colored Americans, published in Helena, MT, primarily to sway black voters to vote for Helena to be named the state capital

• Helena’s African Methodist Episcopal Church hosts denomination’s western regional conference85 Group of Florida Migrants on their way to Cranberry, New Jersey, Jack Delano. July 1940. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Divison, LC-DIG-fsa-

the first great migration (1890s -1920s )

• Began as a steady flow, as opposed to the major surge that was seen years later in the Second Great Migration (which began in earnest during World War II) - About a half million African Americans moved out of the South between 1915-1920 • African Americans moving to the western region numbered fewer than 100,000 • The West experienced a modest migration during the First Migration, but nothing compared to the northern migration86

• 1890 - With the shift from slavery to freedom with the Emancipation Proclamation, a new array of social issues and debates on racial equality were born—black criminality emerged, “as a fundamental measure of black inferiority”87 - Backlash to the newly freed African Americans in southern states forced many African Americans to leave the South. This, on top of the abundance of economic opportunities in the North and West, played a large role in the First Great Migration The First Great Migration

Continued

• EARLY 1900s - In the early 1900s, most African Americans in Helena were part of an established, middle- class community (supporting W.E.B. DuBois’s assertion that the “Talented Tenth” would establish and help raise up the black community).88

• until 1910 - More than 90% of African Americans lived in the American South - As of 1900, the number of southern-born African Americans living outside the South was about 335,00089

• 1910-1930 - New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland saw African-American populations double, while the demographic shift in the West was smaller and more steady90

• Montana-related migration - Montana sees its first noticeable wave of African Americans (still relatively small) migrating to the state from 1865-1880, but the rise in the black population in the state grew noticeably throughout the 1890s, reaching an all-time high of about 1% of the population in the early 1900s.91 • The Montana city to see the largest African-American population increase was Helena, reaching 2% of the population in 1890 and 3.4% of the population in 191092

- African Americans migrating to Montana during the period of the Great Migration were largely coming from areas of the lower South, Kansas, Missouri, and Kentucky (areas known for being particularly violent and hostile towards the African-American population as they struggled with rights owed to them during the Reconstruction period)93 1895 • The Board of Commissioners establishes a school in the Deer Lodge prison - “a half-hearted attempt to assimilate foreigners”97 1896

• Frederick L. Hoffman publishes Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro -Hoffman’s book is the first book-length study to include nationwide analysis of black crime statistics, making it, arguably, the most influential race and crime study of the first half of the 21st century94 -Reveals how racial criminalizations, linked to crime statistics, helped usher in “the age of Jim Crow”95

• Hanging of William Biggerstaff (African-American) for murdering Richard Johnson (African American from Helena)96 1897

• August, 5th, 1897 - The Butte Weekly Miner, “Nearly Bled to Death”: African-American Douglas Walker stabs Tom Baird (white man) and goes to county jail.

• December 9th, 1897, The Butte Weekly Miner, “Requisition for Johnson”: A Missouri man fled to Missoula with a white woman he eloped with. He was caught in Missoula and he was to be returned to Missouri. He was arrested for kidnapping.

• December 16th, 1897, The Butte Weekly Miner, “No Danger of Mob Law”: Follow-up to Johnson case. He was tried in Missoula for adultery and pleads guilty. The governor of Montana asked the governor of Missouri for assurance that Johnson would be protected from mob violence once returned.

• January 13th, 1898, The Butte Weekly Miner, “Writ of Habeas Corpus”: Another Johnson follow-up. 1898 • December 15th, 1898 - The Butte Weekly Miner, “Montana State News”: African-American lawyer to represent an African American arrested for burglary charges — this is the first time in Montana this has happened 1899 • The Butte Weekly Miner, “The Silver Bow Bugle”: Canceling of lynching for Silver Bow

• The Anaconda Standard: Montana Methodist Conference denounces lynching 1900 • National Prison Association formally adopts philosophy of indeterminate prison sentencing across the U.S.98

• Helena’s black community lists: - 2 fraternal orders - A literary society - A women’s benevolent association - A theatrical troupe - A nine piece band - A local baseball team

• Census: -1,523 African Americans, Total Population: 243,329 indeterminate prison sentencing

• Also known as indefinite sentencing, indeterminate prison sentencing is the process of incarcerating an individual with no maximum limit to their sentence

• According to General Roeliff Brinkerhoff of Wisconsin, in 1886, indeterminate prison sentencing within the criminal justice system “assumes, as a principle, that a person convicted of crime is morally diseased,” and should be sent to prison for as long as it takes to “cure them”99 1901

• September 14, 1901: Theodore Roosevelt becomes the 26th president of the United States (after president William McKinley was assassinated) - Roosevelt has to play into the popularity contest of the presidency in order to ensure an “earned” presidency—needed Republican support • Booker T. Washington as chief advisor of Roosevelt100 - “The president’s relationship with the black community was conducted through Washington”101 1902

• African-American newspaper, The New Age, begins weekly publication in Butte, MT

• Roosevelt selects Edgar S. Wilson as United States Marshal for the Southern District of Mississippi, on recommendation by Booker T. Washington - To the black community the appointment of Wilson was looked upon as an effort to “formulate a lily- white Republican party in the South”102 • Handing over federal offices to whites (Democrats, in this case) over blacks (Republicans, in this case) on the part of a Republican administration Booker T. Washington, ca. 1895, Frances Benjamin Johnston. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-J694-255.

booker t. washington and the black community

• politics • politics - Both politically and socially, Washington preached a philosophy of self-help and accomodation - Both politically in regards and socially,to racial uplift,Washington with an preached emphasis a philosophyon economic of opportunity self-help and accomodation- Washington in regardsworked closelyto racial with uplift, presidents with an emphasis William Howard on economic Taft and opportunity Theodore Roosevelt as their - advisorWashington on racial worked matters closely with presidents William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt as their - advisor Washington on racial generally matters believed that confrontation, with regards to racial equality, was too aggressive - Washington an approach generally for thebelieved African-American that confrontation, community with regardsto achieve to racialcivil rights; equality, his was work too aggressiveemphasized, an “industry,approach thrift,for the intelligence, African-American and property” community103 to achieve civil rights; his work emphasized, “industry, thrift, intelligence, and property”104 • education • education- Tuskegee institution - Tuskegee• Washington Institute is perhaps best known for his school, the Tuskegee Institute, which was built as a •vocational Washington school is perhaps for black best individuals known for to his learn school, labor the skills, Tuskegee such as Institute, farming which and other was builttrades as typical a vocationalof rural South school manual for black labor individuals to learn labor skills, such as farming and other trades typical of• An rural emphasis South manual was put labor on labor and tactile skills within the institution, an emphasis that was •criticized An emphasis and refuted was put by on such labor leaders and tactile as W.E.B. skills DuBois within the institution, an emphasis that was criticized and refuted by such leaders as W.E.B. DuBois Continued on next page Continued on next page BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Continued

• controversy - Washington’s stance on racial uplift suggested submission and accommodation. This stance proved to be controversial within the black community because it suggested African Americans should settle for less with regards to work and education. - ‘The Atlanta Compromise’ • an agreement struck in 1895 by Washington and southern white leaders that advocated for African Americans to, “dignify and glorify common labor,” that attempted to ease whites’ fears about black desire for social integration and racial equality105 • the agreement called for the white community to take responsibility for improving social and economic relations with the black community and guaranteed the black community’s loyalty to the white community with this new compromise - It is thought that part of the reason presidents Taft and Roosevelt took on Washington as their advisor was Washington’s acceptance of racial subservience106

• relation to montana - Washington lectured in Billings, Bozeman, Butte, and Helena on black and white relations in the U.S. Washington continued to emphasize accommodation between the races in his speeches throughout Montana, saying, “I believe there is room enough, justice enough, and good sense enough to enable the two races to live here side by side and work out their own destinies.”107 - Booker T. Washington’s ideas and speeches featured prominently in the Montana Plaindealer • Run by Joseph B. Bass, the Montana Plaindealer, an eight-page paper that covered local, regional, state, and national news relating to the black community, often touted progressive ideas rooted in Washinton’s self-help principles108 - Bass did push back against some of Washington’s accommodationist politics, referring to Democratic State Senator Charles S. Muffly as, “the Ben Tillman of the Northwest” for proposing a bill to ban interracial marriage109 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 1906 Continued • The Montana Plaindealer starts publication in Helena, MT (1906-1911) - From 1906 to 1911, The Montana Plaindealer serves as the voice of Helena’s African- American community, and as the only African-American paper in the state - J.B. and Charlotte Bass run the newspaper

• Atlanta Race Riots -President Roosevelt refuses to intervene 1907

• January 11th, 1907, The Montana Plaindealer, “Repudiated! Republicans Deny Their Loyal Ally the Colored Voters…”: Montana Republicans betray black voters by refusing them politi- cal employment and emoluments once in office.

• February 1st, 1907, The Montana Plaindealer, “Jim Crow Legislation”: Senator Havitand, a Democrat from Silver Bow, introduces a bill that bans African Americans from wearing Elks emblem. 1908

• Joseph B. Bass, editor of The Montana Plaindealer (newspaper in Helena from 1906-1911), protests the growing tendency of Helena’s restaurants to deny service to blacks -Helena Montana Plaindealer, July 17, 1908, December 18, 1908110

• The Afro-American Building Association of Helena incorporated, “for the purpose of buying real estate and erecting buildings in the city” 111 - Portland, Seattle, Spokane, and Helena had chapters of the National Negro Business League, a Booker T. Washington-sponsored group that promoted and encouraged black-owned enterprises Black-Run newspapers and their impact on the AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY

• Western black newspapers were a common and crucial point of information for African- American communities across the West. - such newspapers provided information on local, regional, state, and national news that pertained to the black communities in certain areas (news that often got overlooked or was not acknowledged by white-led newspapers)112 - newspapers offered a platform to explore the conditions within their communities and work towards positive change, in particular economic and political conditions that directly affected the African-American community113

• Between 1880 and 1914 there were 43 African-American newspapers in the west, three of which were in Montana114 black newspapers in Montana • The Colored Citizen - 1894, Edited by J.P. Ball, Jr. - Helena’s first black newspaper - mainly campaigned for Helena’s selection over Anaconda for Montana’s state capital

• The New Age - 1902-1903, Edited by John W. Duncan and Chris Dorsey - Butte’s first black newspaper - represented the interests of Butte’s African American community

• The Montana Plaindealer - 1906-1911, Edited by Joseph B. Bass - Helena-based newspaper, documenting racial discrimation on a national level - emphasized economic opportunities for African Americans in Helena and across Montana • May 15th, 1908, The Montana Plaindealer, “Resorting to the Jim Crow Law! Judge Clements Intimates Law is Unconstitutional,” “Jim Crowing,” and “The Colored Elk”: All pertaining to Black Elk members not being allowed to wear their insignia.

• July 31st, 1908, The Montana Plaindealer, “No Jim Crow Laws for Montana”: Montana Supreme Court decides that a law prohibiting black Elk members from wearing their insignia for their order in the state was unconstitutional.

• December 18th, 1908, The Montana Plaindealer, “Wm. J. Holland”: Photo of the man who challenged Elk member law and quick blurb about him. 1909

• Joseph B. Bass, editor of The Montana Plaindealer, unsuccessfully fights anti-miscegenation bill introduced into state legislature - The bill is then passed and signed by the governor in March 1909 - Side note: Black communities in the region were usually exhorted by their leadership and by ambitious and exploitative white politicians to take an active role in local and regional politics—they usually took the form of voting ‘en masse’ for sympathetic white office seekers, but their small numbers “limited the impact of the black vote.”115

• January 5th, 1909, The Montana Plaindealer, no title, Jim Crow signs up on Main Street (most likely in Helena, MT); only place African Americans are allowed is poker halls.

• May 28th, 1909, The Montana Plaindealer, “The Gambling Issue,” Follow up to the January 15th talks about how African Americans have been “Jim Crowed” from all places, but poker games. This is detrimental to African American individuals because it creates debt for them and ruins their families.

• February 12th, 1909, The Montana Plaindealer, “The Muffly Bill,” “The Montana Senate passes the Muffly Jim Crow Bill,” and “Senator Muffly: The Ben Tillman of the Northwest.” The Muffly Bill

Charles S. Muffly

• Democratic Montana State Senator from Winston, MT

• 1907 - Proposed a bill, later known as the Muffly Bill, that prohibited mixed racial marriages • the proposed legislation failed, but the bill was introduced again by Muffly in 1909 and passed116

The Muffly bill

• Becomes law on March 3, 1909

• The law was put forward as “An Act Prohibiting Marriages between White Persons, Negroes, Persons of Negro Blood, and between White Persons, Chinese and Japanese, and making Marriage Void; and prescribing punishment for Solemnizing such Marriages”117

• Throughout the country anti-miscegenation laws were prevalent, proving to be in line with Jim Crow segregation laws (yet another way the legal system worked to discredit and isolate the African-American communities across the country)118

• The Muffly Bill received fierce opposition from black communities in Montana, specifically from the African-American newspaper, The Montana Plaindealer - Editor Joseph B. Bass proclaimed, “Montana has joined the Jim Crow Colony alongside of Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Arkansas”119 - Helena’s white-run press, The Treasure State, stated, “the black man is not the equal of his white contem- porary...and Jim Crow laws won’t hold him down if he deserves to rise.”120 - To which Bass replied, “Just as well to tell us even if you are in prison, if you deserve to be free you shall be.”

• The Muffly Bill remains in law for four decades (until 1953) The Afro-american protective league

Response to the muffly bill

• In response to the Muffly Bill, Plaindealer editor Joseph B. Bass and others form the Afro- American Protective League in an attempt to bring political pressure in defense of black rights121

The league

• The league identified and protested the racial discrimination of African Americans with regards to the justice system122

• African Americans were constantly facing charges (throughout the state) for gambling, disorderly conduct, “lewd acts,” and occassionally “white slavery,” while whites often escaped punishment for similar conduct123

• The Afro-American League’s powerful and necessary presence in Helena’s black community eventually led to the formation of The Colored Progressive League (September 1911)124

- With over 60 active members, The Colored Progressive League, “pledged itself to defend African- Americans unjustly harassed by racist authorities”125

- Sadly, both leagues lost footing in the subsequent years as Helena’s black population declined (most likely due to the World War I draft and stronger economies elsewhere in the West) 1910 • NAACP founded in response to “increasing racial violence in the first decade of the twentieth century and to the outcries of local black activists”126

• Census: -1,834 African Americans, Total Population 376,053127

• May 27th, 1910, The Montana Plaindealer, “Race Problem in the West,” an article written by a high school student in Great Falls, MT. 1911

• September 13th, 1911, Daily Missoulian, “Five Socialist Policemen Bounced by Butte Council,” Frank Cassel (African-American) is appointed as city policeman. The Butte City Council rejects his appointment, along with 4 other officers. -Side note: a few days prior, the New York police force appointed its first African-American police officer128

1912

• Roosevelt enters presidential race as leader of the Progressive Party and establishes a “lily white” party in the South129 - Roosevelt excludes southern black delegates from participating in the Progressive Party Convention130 Theodore Roosevelt, Seated at Desk, c1907, Barnett McFee Clin- edinst. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppm-ca-36021.

the new penology, 1913

• Attention placed on individualized treatment

• Until the 1890s, judges sentenced individuals to fixed terms for specific crimes based on severity of infraction, regardless of individual’s character or past record131

• Judges bound by codified set punishments—Laws, Memorials, and Resolutions, of the Territory of Montana, Passed at the Seventh Session of the Legislative Assembly132 - indeterminate sentences gradually came to replace fixed sentences

• The poor state of prisons and mental institutions caught the attention of progressive reformers, such as President Theodore Roosevelt

• Goal: reformation of the criminal 1913 • Booker T. Washington lectures in Billings, Bozeman, Butte, and Helena for accommodations between blacks and whites133 - “I believe there is room enough, justice enough, and good sense enough to enable the two races to live here side by side and work out their own destinies.”134

• Theodore Roosevelt mentions ideas about punishment and penology in “The New Penology”

• A mob lynched African-American construction camp worker J. C. Collins for killing Sheridan County Sheriff Thomas Courtney and Deputy Sheriff Richard Burmeister. Collins killed them when they attempted to apprehend him for assaulting the wife of a fellow camp worker.135 1914 • November 3, 1914—Montana men voted 53 to 47 percent in favor of equal suffrage. That year, Montana (and Nevada, which also passed a suffrage amendment in 1914) joined nine other western states in extending voting rights to non-Native women (Indian women would have to wait until passage of the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act to gain access to the ballot).136

• Montana women gain suffrage

• World War I begins 1915

• Montana adopts indeterminate prison sentencing practices by legislative fiat 1919 • 50% of Montana farmers lose their land over the next six years137 1920 • Census: - 1,658 African Americans, 548,889 Total Population

• Deer Lodge Penitentiary hits a $138,000 budget deficit and Governor Dixon used this as an excuse to remove Conley as warden138

139 • Under Conley, the prison cost Montana $342,428 to run 1921 • Henry Baker is appointed Postmaster of the Capitol building in Helena, MT— the first black person appointed to a state office in Montana

• Frank Conley’s dismissal from Deer Lodge Penitentiary - Prison largely disappears from public eye for the next 40 years140

• M.L. Potter named new head of the Deer Lodge Penitentiary -Under Potter, the prison costs Montana $177,478 to run141

• Ku Klux Klan forms in Montana and peaks at 5,100 members.142

• March 13th, 1921, Great Falls Tribune, “Negro Minister Rearrested on Money Charges.”

• The Montana Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs is founded, joining together ten organizations.143

deer lodge system change

Interior Detail of Cell Entrances in Dubuque County Jail, Dubuque County, IA, Barnett McFee Clinedinst. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS IOWA, 31-DUBU, 6--8.

1920s-1950s: Deer lodge penitentiary undergoes a transformation

• Attention placed on individualized treatment • The governors didn’t take the business of running the Deer Lodge prison seriously - Though Conley was a corrupt, intolerable man who was in it for the money he did have exclusive financial and administrative control of the prison and he “implemented policy, lobbied for new building projects, formulated budgetary needs, etc.”144 - With Conley, prisoners had the opportunity of outside employment once they were released from the penitentiary

• After Frank Conley was forced to step down individuals like Warden Faye O. Burrell ran the prison

• 1953-1958 — Burrell’s administrative incompetence demonstrates the type of administrating that was being done throughout prisons across the United States through the 1930s-1950s145 1921-present

Deer Lodge Penitentiary Exterior View. Date Unknown. Photograph Unknown. Image 85-11-33, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana. 1922

• Governor Joseph M. Dixon delivers welcome address to the second annual convention of the Montana State Federation of Negro Womens’ Clubs in Helena, MT146 1927

• Tenor Taylor Gordon, a White Sulphur Springs native, sang spirituals with baritone/pianist J. Rosamond Johnson at Carnegie Hall. He later wrote a best-selling memoir, Born to Be (1929), detailing his Montana boyhood, participation in the Harlem Renaissance, and advancing critical appreciation of the spiritual as an art form.147 1930

• Census: - 1,256 African Americans, 537,606 Total Population150

• The Great Depression - legislative appropriations from the cash-starved state, Montana, decline148 - legislation enacted to protect organized labor, prohibiting open sale of inmate-made goods

• November 2, 1930, Helena Independent, “Colored Walsh for Senator Club”: A rally in

Helena for “members & sympathizers” advocating for white U.S. Senator Thomas J. Walsh’s re-election151

• Prison census: 710 (the highest since the antisedition hysterics during World War I)

• 16% of Montana African Americans live in Great Falls, with only 12% in Helena, MT149

uniform crime reports

Interior, First Floor, West Cell Wing of Santa Monica City Jail, Tavos Olmos. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS CA-2803-15.

• Started in 1929, by the International Association of Chiefs of Police

• 1930 - FBI tasked with collecting, publishing, and archiving uniform crime statistics for the nation

• Became the most authoritative statistical measure of race and crime in New Deal America152

• African Americans left behind in this federal government “breakthrough achievement in crime reporting”153

• The purpose of the Uniform Crime Reports was to determine necessary system revisions based on which kinds of crimes were being performed and by whom 1930 Continued •The Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching (ASWPL) is founded by Jessie Daniel Ames in Atlanta, Georgia, to lobby and against the lynching of African Americans 1931

• Prison census: 684 (continues to decline until the 1960s)154

• Legislative committee tours Deer Lodge prison, shocked by the “eyesore” of conditions and infrastructure -Committee appropriates $300,000 to “gut the structures, using inmates to perform the remodeling”155

• March 25, 1931 - The Scottsboro Men (nine young African-American men) are arrested in Alabama for being falsely accused of raping two white women on a train. The controversial case to follow would become nationally renowned. - the case addressed issues of racism within the court system and the right to a fair trial 1932

• Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected the 32nd President of the United States -Roosevelt takes office the following year in the midst of the worst economic crisis in U.S. history

1933

• The New Deal program begins across the country, including Montana

• About 1,000 African Americans move to Montana to work in the Kootenai National Forest as part of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) - Concerns at the local and national levels over integrated CCC camps led to their departure in 1934.157 1935 • According to the Montana Historical Society, almost 25% of Montanans received some sort of government aid156

• African-American Naseby Rhinehart accepts position as athletic trainer for the University of Montana. Rhinehart held the position for 47 years158

• The Butte Colored Giants baseball team won the championship for the first half of the Montana State Baseball League’s split season.159 1937

• World War II begins

• A Montana legislative committee considers a civil rights bill “relating to the discrimination between citizens in regard to certain services and employment,” but it does not pass. The Dunbar Art and Study Club of Butte, an African American women’s organization, helped lobby for its passage.160

1939

• Nazi Germany invades Poland

• Daughters of the American Revolution prohibited contralto Marian Anderson from singing at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. She performed at the Lincoln Memorial instead. 1940

• Between 1940 and 1943, Montana’s population drops by 16%161

• Census: -1,120 African Americans, 559,456 Total Population162 1941

• U.S. declares war on Japan after it bombed Pearl Harbor; Montanan Jeannette Rankin cast the sole vote in Congress against the declaration163 1942

• In order to help meet the war effort’s copper quotas, the U.S. military furloughed a battalion of southern black miner-soldiers to Butte. 8,000 white Butte miners subsequently walked out citing safety issues even though the black soldiers were experienced miners.165

• Helena native and registered nurse Octavia Bridgwater enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps. Bridgwater was one of only several hundred black nurses permitted to serve in the segregated armed forces, and attained the rank of First Lieutenant.164

• Malmstrom Air Force Base was built near Great Falls, MT. It became a conduit for African- American migration to Montana.166

• Montana Supreme Court upholds the anti-miscegenation law

The Pleasant Hour Club Picnic, c1926. MHS PAc 202-3610. Montana Historical Society Research Center Photograph Archives, Helena, MT. 1943 • African-American Phillip Coleman was hanged as the last legal hanging in Montana. His partner, Lewis Brown (white) was only given a life sentence.167 1950 • Census: - 1,232 African Americans, 591,024 Total Population168 1951

• House Bill 58 - the 1951 legislature considers, but does not pass, an anti-discrimination bill aimed at fair employment practices

• House Bill 391, 1951 - the legislature considers a bill “to guarantee full and equal enjoyment of all places of public accommodation.” This still does not pass.169 1953 • State repeals Anti-Miscegenation law; African Americans seek the “full and equal” enjoyment of public places in Montana

• Interracial Committee appointed to study matters of racial discrimination, mostly at Malmstrom Air Force Base170 1954

• Supreme Court outlaws school segregation with Brown V. Topeka Board of Education decision - In 2004, The Sentencing Board notes that while many institutions during this time had become more inclusive to African Americans and other minority groups, the American criminal justice system had taken “a giant step backward”171

• U.S. Prison Census: - 98,000 African Americans incarcerated, 182,901 Total population of incarcerated individuals172

• Excavation begins on Berkeley Pit in Butte, MT 1955

• House Bill 52, an anti-discrimination bill in accommodations law (similar to the 1951 House Bill 391) passes, though virtually all the original language and all penalties for non-compliance get stripped from the final version.

• Legislature appropriates $105,000 to build minimum security building outside of Deer Lodge Penitentiary - F.O. Burrell, current warden, spends only $125 of this money while prison population grows173 1959 • April, 1959, Deer Lodge Penitentiary Inmate Rebellion - Group of inmates overpowered guards, captured rifles, took 25 hostages, and killed Deputy Warden Rothe - Montana National Guard storms the prison - Forces issue of long-overdue prison reform into contemporary political conversation - Increase in legislators’ awareness of the Deer Lodge prison and its host of problems

• Montana property owners are most heavily taxed of all western states174 1960 • Census: -1,467 African Americans, 647,767 Total Population175

• $5 million bond issue made it to the ballot for voters to decide whether the state should levy bonds financed by increased property taxes to construct a new facility at Deer Lodge - 70% of electorate opposed—Montanans just didn’t believe that criminals in Deer Lodge, “deserved the comforts of a new facility”176 - Governor Aronson—totally clueless as to the problems of the prison outbreak and its failing, claiming, “I’ll never know just exactly what caused it…probably a lot of men want[ing] individual TVs in the cell, etc.”177 • Reality: prisoners had appalling conditions (two disturbances in 3 years) 1961 • Teenager Russ Williams, African American, dies from an accidental shooting. Williams had been senior class president, a member of the National Honor Society, and chosen by the faculty to be a member of the schools “3-7-77” honorary service club.178

• January 12, 1961 - Charlayne Hunter, 18, gets withdrawn from classes at University of Georgia for her own protection when students stage an uprising against the racial integration of the university.

• A Freedom Rider bus is firebombed near Anniston, Alabama 1962

• Ozark’s Club, in Great Falls, Montana, burns down - Owned by former boxer, African-American Leo LaMar, Ozark’s Club was well-known for its live music, exotic dancing, and interracial crowds.179 1964

• Senate Majority Leader, Mike Mansfield of Montana, helps pass the Civil Rights Act180

• U.S. Prison Census: - 126,600 African Americans incarcerated, 214,336 Total population of incarcerated individuals181 1965

• Marches in support of civil rights take place in Billings and Missoula in response to attack on civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama182 1970 • Census: -1,995 African Americans, 694,409 Total Population183 1971 • Montana secures $3.8 million in federal revenue-sharing funds to construct a new prison 1972 • The Montana Constitution establishes anti-discrimination rights for all -Constitution of Montana, Article II, Declaration of Rights, Section 4 1973 • African-American Alma Jacobs is appointed as State Librarian (a post she held until 1981) -“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.”184 1974 • Montana Human Rights Act passes, addressing illegal discrimination - Title 49, Chapter 2 of Montana Codes

• Geraldine Travis, of House District 43, in Great Falls, MT becomes the first African American elected to the Montana legislature.185 1975 • Prejudice in Billings, MT stimulates the formation of the Phyllis Wheatley Club, named after the early American poet - Phyllis Wheatley Club formed first as Red Cross assistance during the war - A local notes, “The black person can be found in all levels of society here in Billings.”186 1975 • A Billings Gazette article explains the “invisibility” of the black community to Billings’ non- black community - “Let one black man commit one crime and we are all pegged as thugs” – young African-American teenager - “Most black families exist quietly in Billings. We try to cooperate with whites and other ethnic minorities.” – Rev. Bob Freeman, pastor of Wayman African Methodist Episcopal Church187 1977

• February 19, 1977, The Great Falls Tribune: - A state legislator charges that the emphasis in treatment of inmates at Montana State Prison is on punishment, not rehabilitation - Representative Geraldine W. Travis, D., a Great Falls member of the Montana Crime Control Board, made nine recommendations to help correct what she called, “flagrant abuses” of inmate rights that transcend all limits of human respect and dignity.”188 • Each of Travis’s allegations were rebutted by Warden Roger Crist, also a board member • There was no further discussion of the matters by the board • Travis’s allegations were based on interviews with black prisoners and, as a result of the interviews, Travis had a list of recommendations for the prison 1980 • Census: - 1,786 African Americans, 786,690 Total Population189

• The Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) closes their smelting and refining operations in Great Falls and Anaconda, MT; three years later it ended mining in Butte (though it was later resumed on a small-scale basis).190 - ARCO had an influential impact on the Montana economy; the closing of ARCO set the stage for the downsizing of the mining industry in Montana and ultimately effecting the diversity of the workforce in Montana 1990 • Census - 2,381 African Americans, 799,065 Total Population191 1992

• The Great Falls chapter of the NAACP hosts a rally on the steps of the Civic Center to protest both the verdict of the Rodney King trial and the rebellions in Los Angeles that followed.192 2000 • Census - 2,692 African Americans (though 4,441 claim African-American heritage), 902,195 Total Population193 2010

• Census: - 4,027 African Americans (though 7,917 claim African-American heritage), 989,417 Total Population194 2017 • Wilmot Collins elected as Montana’s first black mayor to take office in Helena, MT Endnotes

1 Smurr, J.W. “Jim Crow Out West.” In Historical Essays on Montana and the Northwest, edited by J.W. Smurr and K. Ross Toole, 149-223. Helena, MT: The Western Press, 1957. 2 Behan, Barbara Carol. “Forgotten Heritage: African Americans in the Montana Territory, 1864-1889,” The Journal of African American History 91, no.1 (Winter 2006): 23-40. 3 Spence, Clark C. Territorial Politics and Government in Montana, 1864-89. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976, p. 218-20; Congressional Globe, 39th Cong., 2d session, 1866-67, 1816-17, as mentioned in Keith Edgerton. Montana Justice: Power, Punishment, & the Penitentiary (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2004), 22. 4 Davidson, Stanley R. and Dale Tash. “Confederate Backwash in Montana Territory.” In The Montana Past: An Anthology, edited by Michael P. Malone and Richard B. Roeder, 111-120 (Missoula, MT: University of Montana Press, 1969), 115. 5 Montana Post, March 17, 1866. 6 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 20; Rocky Mountain Gazette (Helena, MT), April 30, 1870; Daily Herald (Helena, MT), April 18, 1870. 7 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 29-31. 8 Congressional Globe, 39th Cong., 2d sess., Appendix, Laws of the United States, Chap. 9, Approved January 22, 1867, 180; Edgerton, Montana Justice, 30. 9 U.S. House of Representatives, 41st Congress, 2d sess., 1870-71, H. Exec. Doc 286; A.T. Ackerman, U.S. Attorney General, to William F. Wheeler, U.S. Marshal, Helena, March 3, 1871, Department of Justice, Letters Sent by the Department of Justice, “instructions to U.S. Attorneys and Marshals, 1867-1904,” RG 60, National Archives, College Park, Md., as mentioned in Edgerton, Montana Justice, 30. 10 Smurr, J.W. “Jim Crow Out West.” In Historical Essays on Montana and the Northwest, edited by J.W. Smurr and K. Ross Toole, 149-223 (Helena, MT: The Western Press, 1957), 162; Mark C. Dillon. The Montana Vigilantes, 1863- 1870: Gold, Guns, and Gallows (Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2013), 24. 11 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 21. 12 Dillon, The Montana Vigilantes, 1863-1870, 24. 13 Dimsdale, Thomas. The Vigilantes of Montana: Or Popular Justice in the Rocky Mountains. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 1866. 14 Edgerton, Keith. “Power, Punishment, and the United States Penitentiary at Deer Lodge City, Montana Territory, 1871-1889.” Master’s thesis, Montana State University-Billings, 1997, p. 164. 15 Dillon, The Montana Vigilantes, 1863-1870, 183. 16 Edgerton, “Power, Punishment, and the United States Penitentiary,” 167. 17 Ibid. 18 Flamming, Douglas. African Americans in the West (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009), 96. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Montana State Prison Records, 1871, Montana Historical Society (MHS); Edgerton, Montana Justice, 35. 22 Ibid. 23 Lang, William L. “Helena, Montana’s Black Community, 1900-1912.” In African Americans on the Western Frontier, edited by Monroe Lee Billington and Roger D. Hardaway, 198-216. Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1998. 24 Congressional Globe, 42d Cong., 3d sess., 1874, 409-10; Edgerton, Montana Justice, 40. 25 Montana Penitentiary, November 17, 1873, Montana State Prison Records, 1869-1974, MHS. 26 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 26. 27 Ibid., 27. 28 S.W. Batchelder, C.S. Ream, and William Sturgis (Argenta, MT) to Secretary of the Interior, April 18, 1867, Territorial Papers; Edgerton, Montana Justice, 27. 29 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 26. 30 The Statistics of the Population; Edgerton, Montana Justice, 60. 31 Ibid. 32 Based on the census from the years 1871-1885 and the Statistic of the Population; Montana State Prison Records, 1869-1974, MHS. 33 The Statistics of the Population; Edgerton, Montana Justice, 60. 34 Butler, Anne M. “Still in Chains: Black Women in Western Prisons, 1865-1910.” In African Americans on the Western Frontier, edited by Monroe Lee Billington and Roger D. Hardaway, 181-197. Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1998, p. 34; Edgerton, Montana Justice, 61; “Descriptive List of Prisoners”; “Montana Prison Convict Register.” 35 Butler, “Still in Chains”, 192. 36 Ibid., 189. 37 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 26. 38 Hakola, John. “Samuel T. Hauser and Economic Development of Montana: A Case Study in Nineteenth Century Frontier Capitalism,” Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1961, 36, 37-74, and passim. and William G. Robbins, Colony and Empire: The Capitalist Transformation of the American West. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 103-20. 39 Ibid., 27 40 Ibid. 41 Smurr, “Jim Crow Out West,” 154. 43 Catalogue of the Helena Graded Schools (1875), 8; Smurr, “Jim Crow Out West,” 173. 44 Miller, Joaquin. An Illustrated History of the State of Montana: Containing a History of the State of Montana from the Earliest Period of its Discovery to the Present Time, together with Glimpses of its Auspicious Future; Illus- trations and Full-Page Portraits of Some of its Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Citizens of Today (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Co, 1894), 398. 45 Ibid. 46 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 66 47 Catalogue of the Helena Graded Schools (1879-80), 8; Smurr, “Jim Crow Out West,” 173. 48 Frusciano, Thomas Joseph. ”Theodore Roosevelt and the Negro in the Age of Booker T. Washington, 1901- 1912.” Master’s thesis, University of Montana, 1975, p. 4. 49 Rothstein, Richard. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. New York: Liverright Publishing Corporation, 2017, p. 42. 50 Howard, , Marc Morjé. Unusually Cruel: Prisons, Punishment, and the Real American Exceptionalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 153. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. 53 Berardi, Gayle K. and Thomas W. Segady. “The Development of African American Newspapers in the American West, 1880-1914.” In African Americans on the Western Frontier, edited by Monroe Lee Billington and Roger D. Hardaway, 198-216. Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1998, p. 221. 54 Smurr, “Jim Crow Out West,” 183. 55 Ibid., 154; United States v. Singleton (1883), 109 U.S. 3. 56 Smurr, “Jim Crow Out West,” 154 57 Quoted in Edgerton, Montana Justice, 42; U.S. House of Representatives, Report of the Governor of Montana, 1883, H.Exec. Doc. 1, 48th Cong., 1st sess., 1883-84. Also see Helena Herald, June 5, July 6, and August 17, 1885. 58 Helena Daily Independent, May 14, 1882; Smurr, “Jim Crow Out West,” 183. 59 Spence, Territorial Politics, 268; Edgerton, Montana Justice, 42. 60 United States Statutes at Large, 23, 510, as mentioned in Edgerton, Montana Justice, 43. 61 Ogden, Karen. “Projects Work to Record, Recognize History of State’s African-Americans.” Great Falls Tribune (Great Falls, MT), February 5, 2006. 62 HWH newspaper, September 27, 1888. 63 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 57. 64 Butler, “Still in Chains,” 34; “Descriptive List of Prisoners”; “Montana Prison Convict Register.” 65 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 40. 66 Third Annual Report of the Board of State Prison Commissioners of the State of Montana, December 1, 1893. Butte: Inter Mountain Publishing Company, 1895; Edgerton, Montana Justice, 71. 67 Laws, Memorials, and Resolutions of the State of Montana passed at the Second Regular Session of the Legislative Assembly, Helena, Montana, January 5, 1891-March 5, 1891 (Helena, MT: Journal of Publishing Company, 1891), 148; Edgerton, Montana Justice, 70. 68 Muhammad, Khalil Gibran. The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the making of Modern Urban America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 76-77. 69 Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness, 77; Ronald Falkner, “Crime and Census.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 9, no. 1 (1897): 43, 44, 62-66. 70 Rothstein, The Color of Law, 42. 71 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 73; Silver State Post (Deer Lodge, MT), May 20, 1908. 72 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 69. 73 Ibid.; Laws, Memorials, and Resolutions of the State of Montana passed at the Second Regular Session of the Legislative Assembly, Helena, Montana, January 5, 1891-March 5, 1891 (Helena, MT: Journal of Publishing Company, 1891), 148. 74 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 72; Jon Axline, “Convict Labor,” Independent Record (Helena, MT), January 16, 1997. 75 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 72. 76 Conley to Chief of Police, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, February 25, 1921, Montana State Prison Records, MHS; Edgerton. Montana Justice, 87. 77 Conley to Annie Leavenworth, January 10, 1920, Montana State Prison Records, MHS; Edgerton, Montana Justice, 87. 78 Kent, Philip. Montana State Prison History. Deer Lodge, MT: Powell County Museum and Arts Foundation, 1979; Edgerton, Montana Justice, 87. 79 Great Falls Tribune (Great Falls, MT), January 3, 1892. 80 Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness, 60 81 Schechter, Patricia Ann. Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform (Chapel HIll, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 124; Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness, 60. 82 The Glendive Independent (Glendive, MT), August 12, 1893. The tone of the article is encouraging such publicly humiliating and heinous acts. The article is blatantly racist and has a cruel and mocking tone. 83 Montana State Prison Records, 1893, MHS. 84 Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness, 60. 85 Rothstein, The Color of Law, 42. 86 Flamming, African Americans in the West, 96. 87 Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness, 20. 88 Lang, William L. “The Nearly Forgotten Blacks on Last Chance Gulch, 1900-1912.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 70, no. 2 (1979): 50-57; Flamming, Douglas. “Seeking Freedom in the West, 1890-1920.” In African Ameri- cans in the West, edited by Scott C. Zeman, 91-125. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2009. 89 Flamming, “Seeking Freedom in the West, 1890-1920.” 90 Ibid. 91 Behan, “Forgotten Heritage,” 23-40. 92 Report on Population of the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890, Part I (Washington, D.C. 1895), 467; Thirteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1910, Vol. II: Population (Washington, D.C., 1913), 15; Lang, “The Nearly Forgotten Blacks on Last Chance Gulch, 1900-1912,” 50-57. 93 Davison and Tash, “Confederate Backwash in Montana Territory,” 111-120; McMillen, Christian. “Border State Terror and the Genesis of the African-American Community in Deer Lodge and Choteau Counties, Montana, 1870-1890” The Journal of Negro History 79, no.2 (1994): 212-247; Behan, “African Americans in the Montana Territory, 1864-1889,” 24. 94 Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness, 35. 95 Ibid. 96 Anaconda Standard (Anaconda, MT), June 10, 1895, 7; Anaconda Standard (Anaconda, MT), April 5, 1896, 5; Great Falls Weekly Tribune (Great Falls, MT), April 10, 1896, 2. 97 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 83. 98 Proceedings of the Annual Congress of the National Prison Association of the United States, 1900 (Pittsburgh: Shaw Brothers, 1900), 373. 99 Brinkerhoff, Gen. Roecliff. “Prison Reform.” In Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction at the Thirteenth Annual Session Held in St. Paul, Minn., July 15-22, edited by Isabel C. Barrows, 90-102 (Boston: Press of Geo. H. Ellis, 1886). 100 Pringle, Henry F. Theodore Roosevelt, A Biography (New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1932), 343-344. 101 Frusciano, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Negro in the Age of Booker T. Washington,” 15. 102 Frusciano, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Negro in the Age of Booker T. Washington,” 42. 103 Ibid. 104 Ibid. 105 Louis R. Harlan, ed., The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol. 3, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974), 583–587. 106 Frusciano, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Negro in the age of Booker T. Washington,” 8-9, 17, 19; Roosevelt’s ‘merit system’ in race relations was almost entirely politically charged. Roosevelt is quoted as admitting “as a race and in the mass Negroes are altogether inferior to whites” and asserted that he would never ask “the Negro to be allowed to vote,” though he did wish the “occasionally good, well-educated, intelligent and honest colored men and women be given the pitiful chance to have a little reward, a little respect, a little regard if they can by earnest useful work succeed in winning it”(Roosevelt to Owen Wister (novelist), April 27, 1906, Letters, V, 228). Booker T. Washington’s ideology of accommodation and self-help underscored Roosevelt’s racial attitude in upholding only the part of the African American community willing to work blue collar jobs and stay out of the way of the white male worker. For more information check out George Sinkler. The Racial Attitudes of American Presidents: From Abraham Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1972), 4-l8, and Theodore Roosevelt to L. J. Moore, February 5, 1900, Elting E. Morison, ed., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952). 107 Billings Daily Gazette, March 4-5, 1913; Bozeman Daily Chronicle, March 4, 6-7, 1913; Anaconda Standard, March 6-7, 1913; Butte Miner, March 6-7, 1913; Helena Daily Independent, March 8, 1913. 108 Lang, “Helena, Montana’s Black Community, 1900-1912.” 109 Taylor, Quintard. “The Black Urban West, 1870-1910.” In In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990, 192-221. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998. 110 Taylor, “The Emergence of Black Communitities in the Pacific Northwest: 1865-1910.” 111 The Montana Plaindealer, January 10, 1908; Lang, “The Forgotten Negroes of Last Chance Gulch,”10. 112 Taylor, Quinton. In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998), 197; Lang, “Helena, Montana’s Black Community, 1900-1912,” 198-216. 113 Berardi, Gayle K. and Thomas W. Segady. “The Development of African American Newspapers in the American West, 1880-1914.” In African Americans on the Western Frontier, edited by Monroe Lee Billington and Roger D. Hardaway, 198-216 (Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1998), 220. 114 Ibid., 225. 115 Taylor, “The Black Urban West, 1870-1910,” 347. 116 Lang, “Helena, Montana’s Black Community, 1900-1912.” 117 Montana, Laws, Resolutions and Memorials of the State of Montana Passed at the Eleventh Regular Session of the Legislative Assembly (Helena, MT: Independent Publishing Co., 1909), 57-58. 118 Swartout, Jr., Robert R. “A Symphany of Cultures.” In Montana: A Cultural Medley, edited by Robert R. Swartout, Jr., 1-20. Helena, MT: Farcountry Press, 2015. 119 Plaindealer, March 5, 1909; Lang. “Helena, Montana’s Black Community, 1900-1912,” 198-216. 120 Treasure State (Helena, MT), Feb. 20, 1909; Lang. “Helena, Montana’s Black Community, 1900-1912,” 198- 216. 121 Lang. “Helena, Montana’s Black Community, 1900-1912,” 198-216. 122 Ibid. 123 “Montana Prison Convict Register, March, 1879 through November, 1910” and “Descriptive List of Prison- ers Received at State Prison, July 1, 1871-October 1, 1885,” Montana Prison Records, MHS, Helena, Montana. 124 Lang, “Helena, Montana’s Black Community, 1900-1912,” 198-216. 125 Editorials in Plaindealer, April 2, Oct. 30, 1909; May 26, Sept. 8, 1911; Lang. “Helena, Montana’s Black Community, 1900-1912,” 198-216. 126 Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness, 29. 127 Montana State Census Records, 1910, MHS. 128 The Butte Miner (Butte, MT), July 7, 1911. 129 Frusciano, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Negro in the Age of Booker T. Washington, 1901-1912,” 2. 130 Ibid., 13. 131 Deer Lodge: James H. Mills, 1872., lists territorial crime laws and punishments, most of which were state modified and adopted in 1889. 132 Ibid. 133 Kidston, Martin J. “Timeline of Montana Blacks” in Helena Air, Jan. 18, 2009, from the Independent Record. 134 Billings Daily Gazette (Billings, MT), March 4-5, 1913; Bozeman Daily Chronicle (Bozeman, MT), March 4, 6-7, 1913; Anaconda Standard (Anaconda, MT), March 6-7, 1913; Butte Miner (Butte, MT), March 6-7, 1913; Helena Daily Independent (Helena, MT), March 8, 1913; MHS. 135 Wibaux Pioneer, April 18, 1913, p. 2; Yellowstone Monitor, April 10, 1913, p. 1; Poplar Standard, April 10, 1913; Culbertson Searchlight, April 11, 1913. 136 “African Americans in Montana Timeline,” 1914, MHS. http://mhs.mt.gov/Shpo/AfricanAmericans/History/ Timeline. 137 Ibid. 138 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 91. 139 Ibid. 140 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 99. 141 Ibid. 142 Erickson, Christine K. “‘Kluxer Blues’: The Klan Confronts Catholics in Butte, Montana, 1923-1929,” Montana: the Magazine of Western History (Spring, 2003): 44-57; “African Americans in Montana Timeline,” MHS, 1921. 143 Montana Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, Montana Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs records, 1921-1978, MC 281, MHS. 144 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 99. From 1921-1958 the wardens were M.L. Potter, J.W. Cole, Austin B. Middle- ton, Theodore Bergstorm, Dudley Jones, John Henry, Lou Boedeckers, F.O. Burrell, and Willliam Bensen (a range of county sheriffs to road engineers and a postmaster from Baker, MT, even a cattle rancher). 145 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 99-100; “Transcript of Hearing, Board of Prison Commissioners, September 25, 1957.” Montana State Prison Records, MHS. 146 “African Americans in Montana Timeline,” 1922, MHS. 147 New York Times, February 17, 1927; “African Americans in Montana Timeline,” 1927, MHS. 148 Edgerton, Montana Justice, xvi; Flamming, Douglas. “Between the World Wars, 1920-1940.” In African Americans in the West, edited by Scott C. Zeman, 127-158 (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2009), 150. 149 Billings Daily Gazette (Billings, MT), March 4-5, 1913; Bozeman Daily Chronicle (Bozeman, MT), March 4, 6-7, 1913; Anaconda Standard (Anaconda, MT), March 6-7, 1913; Butte Miner (Butte, MT), March 6-7, 1913; Helena Daily Independent (Helena, MT), March 8, 1913; MHS. 150 Montana State Census Records, 1910, MHS 151 November 2, 1930, Helena Independent; “African Americans in Montana Timeline,” MHS, 1930. 152 Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness, 13. 153 Ibid. 154 Montana Prison Records, MHS. 155 “Board of Prison Commissioners, Transcript of Hearing, August 7, 1957,” Montana Attorney General Records, MHS; “Report of Special Joint Committee of Twenty-Second Legislative Assembly of the State of Montana on State Institutions at Deer Lodge, Galen, and Warm Springs, 1931,” Montana Governors Papers (Aronson), MHS. 156 Holmes, Krys. Montana: Stories of the Land (Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 2008), 358. 157 Mack, Dwayne. “May the Work I’ve Done Speak for Me: African American Civilian Corps (sic) Enrollees in Montana, 1933-1934.” Western Journal of Black Studies 27 (November 2003), 236-245. 158 Great Falls Tribune, June 12, 1991; “African Americans in Montana Timeline,” MHS, 1935. 159 “African Americans in Montana Timeline,” MHS, 1935. 160 Montana Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs records, 1921-1978, MC 281, MHS. 161 MHS. 162 Montana State Census Records, 1940, MHS. 163 MHS. 164 Baumler, Ellen, Kate Hampton, and John Boughton, “Haight-Bridgwater House National Register of Historic Places Registration Form,” (Helena, MT: MT Historical Society, 2014); MHS. 165 Basso, Matthew L. “Butte, 1942: White Men, Black Soldier-Miners and the Limits of Popular Front Interra- cialism.” In Meet Joe Copper: Masculinity and Race on Montana’s World War II Home Front, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 159-194. 166 Malmstrom Air Force Base, vertical files, MHS. 167 “African Americans in Montana Timeline,” 1943, MHS. 168 Montana State Census Records, 1950, MHS 169 Eruteya, Glenda Rose. “Racial Legislation in Montana: 1864–1955.” Master’s thesis, University of Montana, 1981. 170 “African Americans in Montana Timeline,” 1953, MHS. 171 The Sentencing Project. Schools and Prisons: Fifty Years After Brown V. Board of Education. Washington, D.C.: The Sentencing Project, 2004. https://static.prisonpolicy.org/scans/sp/brownvboard.pdf; Spohn, Cassia. ”Race, Crime, and Punishment in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries.” Crime and Justice 44 (2015): 49-97. 172 The Sentencing Project. Schools and Prisons; U.S. Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics: Prisoners 1925-81. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1982. 173 Edgerton, Montana Justice, 100; “Transcript of Hearing, Board of Prison Commissioners, September 25, 1957,” Montana State Prison Records, MHS. 174 Ibid. 175 Montana State Census Records, 1960, MHS 176 Waldron, Ellis and Paul B. Wilson, Atlas of Montana Elections 1889-1976, (Missoula: University of Montana Press, 1978), 221; as mentioned in Edgerton, Montana Justice, 104. 177 Aronson, Hugo and L.O. Brockman, The Galloping Swede (Missoula: Falcon Press, 1970), 122; also referenced in Edgerton, Montana Justice, 105. 178 Helena Independent Record, January 25, 1961, p. 11; MHS. 179 Robison, Ken. “Breaking Racial Barriers: ‘Everyone’s Welcome’ at the Ozark Club Great Falls, Montana’s African American Nightclub,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 62, No. 2 (Summer 2012), 44-58, 94-95; Great Falls Tribune, February 5, 2006; MHS. 180 Oberdorfer, Don. Senator Mansfield: The Extraordinary Life of a Great American Statesman and Diplomat, Part 9: “Johnson I: Years of Escalation, Civil Rights Act of 1964,”(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution 2015); MHS. 181 The Sentencing Project. Schools and Prisons; U.S. Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics: Prisoners 1925-81. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1982. 182 Missoulian, March 18-19, 21, 1965; Billings Gazette, March 15-16, 1965.; “African Americans in Montana Timeline,” MHS, 1965. 183 Montana State Census Records, 1970, MHS 184 Alma Smith Jacobs, vertical file, MHS. 185 Great Falls Tribune, January 12, 1975, November 4, 1976. 186 Meyers, Christene C. “Black Billings: Our Invisible Minority Won a Quiet Revolution.” Billings Gazette, Sunday, October 5, 1975. 187 Meyers, “Black Billings.” 188 The Great Falls Tribune, February 19, 1977. 189 Montana State Census Records, 1970, MHS. 190 “African Americans in Montana Timeline,” 1970, MHS. 191 Montana State Census Records, 1980, MHS. 192 The Great Falls Tribune, May 4, 1992. 193 “African Americans in Montana Timeline,” 1980, MHS. 194 Montana State Census Records, 1990, MHS.

Additional Reading

For more information on Montana’s criminal justice system and its’ history look into:

Bakken, Gordon. The Development of Law on the Rocky Mountain Frontier: Civil Law and Society, 1850-1912. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1983.

Baumler, Ellen. Dark Spaces: Montana’s Historic Penitentiary at Deer Lodge. Alburquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2008.

Butler, Anne. Gendered Justice in the American West: Women Prisoners in Men’s Penitentiaries. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.

Callaway, Lew L. Montana’s Righteous Hangmen: The Vigilantes in Action. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982.

Dillon, Marc C. The Montana Vigilantes, 1863-1870: Gold, Guns, and Gallows. Boulder, CO: The University Press of Colorado, 2013.

Edgerton, Keith. Montana Justice: Power, Punishment, & the Penitentiary. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004.

Harvie, Robert. Keeping the Peace: Police Reform in Montana, 1889-1918. Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 1994.

Robbins, William G. Colony and Empire: The Capitalist Transformation of the American West. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1994.

For more information on Black westward migration look into:

Billington, Monroe Lee and Roger D. Hardaway, ed. African Americans on the Western Frontier. Niwot, CO: Univer- sity Press of Colorado, 1998.

Flamming, Dougas. African Americans in the West. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2009.

Smurr, J.W. and K. Ross Toole, ed. Historical Essays on Montana and the Northwest. Helena, MT: The Western Press, 1957.

Taylor, Quintard. In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998.

For more information on the development of the United States’ criminal justice system and the history of race-based prosection look into:

Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press, 2012.

Blombery, Thomas G. and Karol Lucken. American Penology: A History of Control. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2000.

Curtin, Mary Ellen. Black Prisoners and Their World, Alabama, 1865-1900. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000.

Howard, Marc Morjé. Unusually Cruel: Prisons, Punishment, and the Real American Exceptionalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Mauer, Marc. Race to Incarcerate. New York: The New Press, 2006.

Muhammad, Khalil Gibran. The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010.

McShane, Marilyn D. Prisons in America. New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing, LLC., 2008.

Oshinsky, David M. Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Injustice. New York: The Free Press, 1996.

Piscotta, Alexander. Benevolent Repression: Social Control and the American Reformatory-Prison Movement. New York: New York University Press, 1994.