From 1900 to the early 1920s, an unusual community existed in America's
heartland: Buxton, Iowa, established by the Consolidation Coal Company.
The majority of Buxton's five thousand residents were African Americans -- a
highly unusual racial composition for a state which was over 90 percent white.
At a time when both southern and northern blacks were disadvantaged and
oppressed, blacks in Buxton enjoyed true racial integration -- steady
employment, above-average wages, decent housing, and minimal discrimination. For
such reasons, Buxton was commonly known as "the black man's utopia in
Iowa." Now, eighty years after the town's demise, this truly
interdisciplinary history of a unique Iowa community remains a compelling story.
Buxton: A Black Utopia in the Heartland
by Dorothy Schwieder, Joseph Hraba, and Elmer Schwieder
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Publication Date: 2003
Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Book Type: New