Negroes to Establish Big Colony in Kansas
Committee Dickers with Railroad for purchase of 20,00 acres at a Low Price
Topeka, Kan.--Negroes from all over the United States soon will establish a colony exclusively for negroes, in western Kansas.
A committee is now dealing with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad for purpose of 20,000 acres of land, with an option on another equal area, on which to establish the proposed colony.
M. B. Brooks, editor of the Hutchinson Blade, a negro paper; Thomas Owens and N. H. Jelitz of Hutchinson and T. W. Gangway of Pratt are the organizers of the plan for the colony. They have had assurances of 800 negroes in all parts of the country to move to the new colony if the deal for the western Kansas land can be made.
Negroes now living in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago St. Louis, Cincinnati, Washington and several southern cities have joined the peoples civil league the name of the organization.
It is not proposed to manage the colony on any socialistic or cooperative plan. The committee simply expects to purchase the land from the railroad and hold it in trust for the members of the organization until the final payments are made the railroad company owns many thousands of acres of good land in the western part of the state. It sells the land only, to actual settlers on the installment plan. The land is offered at a low price and may be paid for in five, ten or twenty-year installments.