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Black colonel's dream town celebrates 100 years

ALLENSWORTH, Calif. — Spirals of alkaline dust swirl across the hardpan where a century ago 300 black Americans planted alfalfa and corn hoping racial tolerance would take root.

They were led to this remote place by escaped slave Allen Allensworth, a retired Army chaplain and the first black lieutenant colonel. Their goal: to build a prosperous African-American farming community that would change perceptions about people who first suffered slavery, then Jim Crow segregation laws.

"It was more than creating an all-black community," said Lonnie G. Bunch, founding director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. "There was a national political strategy involved in the founding of Allensworth that makes it unique."

Allensworth _ now a state park with rebuilt clapboard houses, two general stores, a Baptist Church and beloved schoolhouse _ will be the site of the town's centennial celebration this weekend. And thousands of visitors are expected to travel streets named Sojourner Truth and Booker T. Washington.
Read entire article at AP