#AlbertHubert | #Blackdomites c.1920

APRIL 12, 1920, “WILL DRILL AT BLACKDOM”

“Bourgeois values define the family situation in America, give it certain goals. Oppressed and poor people who try to reach these goals fail because of the very condition that the bourgeoisie established.”

Huey Newton, Revolutionary Suicide

In 1903, Albert Hubert was one of thirteen founders of the Blackdom Townsite Company who didn’t fully invest and stayed “a servant,” his whole life. According to (3) decades of census records, Albert was a stable head of household in Chaves County, New Mexico. Abiding was no easy feat. Albert’s life strategy sustained him as a Black man at the chaotic intersection of Mexico’s northern frontier, and America’s Western frontier as borders crossed people.

As late as 1930, Albert didn’t homestead and had invested his labor in Roswell, New Mexico (20 miles north of Blackdom) where he lived on East Third Street (for 30 years). Blackdomites occupied space virtually by maintaining a home “in town” and proving-up a homestead connected to the idea of Blackdom. At the will of the people, dual existence allowed Blackdom to assemble, disassemble and reassemble. Blackdom’s nimble concept allowed the township to weather times of tumult and thrive in boom times.

In 1914, Blackdom Townsite’s original 40-acre plot was officially patented, but the process began in 1909 after a lackluster attempt in 1903. The homestead class dictated Blackdom Township’s agenda; meanwhile, the townsite languished for years while they struggled to produce a sovereign life on subsistence dry-farming. Many Black men had to leave their families on homesteads for long periods of time to make ends meet.

Roswell Daily Record: Blackdom Oil Company Monday, April 12, 1920 [pg 2]

Albert’s side-hustle in the city became his main-hustle and Blackdom Township lost him to a consistent paycheck as well as the responsibility to his blossoming family. He was a literate Texan, who according to the 12th U.S. Census of 1900, was “about 30” married to 20-year-old Pearl. The Hubert family included their two-year-old daughter Sadee, and possibly a nine-year-old daughter Bernice from a previous relationship. From 1900 through 1930 the Hubert family steadily grew every 3 to 5 years. 

By 1920, the Hubert family consisted of Pearl and six kids—Bernice (24), Juanita (18), Linwood (son 14), Valerie (daughter 12), Burt (son 10), and Mattie (daughter 7). Albert worked for the Travis Ellis family whose patriarch was a railroad auditor who migrated from Kentucky. In 1900, Travis was 29 and his Indiana-born wife Maude was 27. With the help of Albert, Maude worked from home taking care of two daughters.

Southeastern New Mexico had developed into a Southern-styled Confederate society and some Roswellians embraced visiting lecturers who promoted the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. In 1924, the Pioneer Klan of Roswell inaugurated its existence with a cross-burning in the city. Albert’s Kentucky-born employer may or may not have been a Klan sympathizer, but Albert was risk-averse and not likely to test those limits. For him, Blackdom may have appeared both dangerous financially and physically. 

Albert was both a “servant” and co-founder of Blackdom. One can only wonder what he felt on April 9, 1920, when he read in the Roswell Daily Record, “Will Drill At Blackdom.”

by Dr. Timothy E. Nelson ©