Langston

The town of Langston in Logan County is located on State Highway 33, ten miles northeast of Guthrie. The name honors John Mercer Langston, an African American educator and 51st United States Congress from Virginia. Because Langston and Brooksville began in Oklahoma Territory, they differ from the other thirteen surviving All-Black towns. An African American political figure from Kansas. McCabe helped lead a migration of black settlers from southern U.S. states who hoped to escape discrimination by creating a majority-black state in what was then the Territory of Oklahoma. Although E. P. McCabe has been credited for founding the town, Charles Robbins, a white man, owned the land and filed a town survey and plat in 1891. The two men opened the town on April 22, 1890. McCabe used traveling salesmen and African American newspapers to advertise lots for sale in Langston, and the deeds which accompanied the sale of these lots stipulated that their re-sale could only be to other African Americans. McCabe initiated the Langston City Herald in October 1890, using it to promote African American migration to Oklahoma and the newborn Langston community.