Outskirts Press, INC.

A former slave founded and fashioned Blackville, Arkansas, located in the Northeast section of the state.When he died in c. 1955, his land stretched twenty-one miles, and his assets, which included a cotton gin, rice and grain silos, and a small fleet of airplanes, valued in the millions of dollars.The work and legacy of Pickens William Black Sr. and the history of Blackville are just beginning to emerge.

Blackville, Arkansas, was once a thriving all-Black self-sufficient agrarian settlement in Northeast Arkansas founded by a former slave named Pickens William Black Sr. At her zenith Blackville had a school, meat packing house, two churches, a mercantile store, a cotton gin, grain silos, flatbed trucks, at least forty tractors, several combines, other commercial farming equipment, and a small fleet of airplanes, all owned by the Black family. The major crops were cotton, rice, and soybeans. Blackville served as the trading center for many of the smaller communities in the area. When the former slave died c. 1955, his land stretched over twenty miles, the Black enterprise was worth millions of dollars and was the largest commercial farming industry in the region, and possibly in all the Eastern Delta of Arkansas. This volume is a compilation of stories from the last generation to grow up in Blackville or to have been associated with the settlement. The storytellers have provided a rare heartwarming glimpse of the extinct community.

The takeoffs and landings of airplanes from the 1940s until around 1970 were so commonplace in Blackville that residents in the all-Black settlement paid little mind to the roar of the engines….Many may believe such a place could only exist in fantasy or fiction. How else could so few people have heard of the former slave Pickens W. Black Sr. and the pilot Pickens W. Black Jr. and Blackville, Arkansas, the remarkable haven for Americans of African descent? This book offers a treasure trove of first-person narratives. These stories are a vital excavation, reconstruction, and vivification of a long-neglected part of American history. Participants in Blackville, Arkansas, Fashioned By A Former Slave share their joy and pride and fill in crucial facts about the everyday lives, struggles, and triumphs of Black Arkansans. –Priscilla Ann Brown, Ph.D.