Date of Award
1933
Document Type
Thesis
Keywords
Isaiah T. Montgomery, Mound Bayou, African American History, Black Towns, Mississippi, Reconstruction, Self-Governance, Benjamin Montgomery, Davis Plantation, All-Black Communities, Great Migration, HBCU Thesis
Abstract
This thesis, submitted to Xavier University in partial fulfillment of requirements for a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1933, presents a biographical and historical study of Isaiah Thornton Montgomery (1847–1924), the founder of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, the most prominent all-Black town in the United States. Drawing on memoirs, newspaper accounts, and the Journal of Negro History, the study traces Montgomery's origins as the son of Benjamin T. Montgomery, an educated slave on the Davis plantation in Mississippi, through his founding of Mound Bayou in 1887 on a 30,000-acre land grant secured from the Louisville, New Orleans, and Texas Railway. The thesis examines the social, economic, and political structures of the colony, including its all-Black local government, banking institutions, cotton gin and oil mill, schools, and churches. The study also addresses Montgomery's sole representation of Black Mississippians at the 1890 state constitutional convention, his tenure as Mound Bayou's first mayor, and his final years advocating against the Great Migration. The author concludes with an assessment of the colony's condition in the early 1930s, identifying the loss of local control over the school system and outmigration of educated youth as the most serious threats to the colony's survival. No original abstract was included; this abstract is provided by the XULA Digital Commons editors.
Recommended Citation
Victory, Sister Mary of SSF, "Isaiah Thorriton Montgomery His Life and Work" (1933). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 123.
https://digitalcommons.xula.edu/etd/123