"An enthralling work that will be essential reading for years to come." —David Nicholson, Washington Post A landmark history of African Americans in the West,

From the 18th century, African Americans, like many others, have migrated to California to seek fortunes or, often, the more modest goals of being able to find

The American West is mistakenly known as a region with few African Americans and virtually no black history. This work challenges that view in a chronicle that

In 1964 an Urban League survey ranked Los Angeles as the most desirable city for African Americans to live in. In 1965 the city burst into flames during one of

Seattle's first black resident was a sailor named Manuel Lopes who arrived in 1858 and became the small community's first barber. He left in the early 1870s to