Montgomery, Isaiah Thornton
1847-1924 · Contribution: 1887-1924
Co-founded Mound Bayou, Mississippi, in 1887, which grew into the largest self-governing all-Black town in the United States, with its own bank, cotton oil mill, and thousands of Black landowning residents at its peak
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Impact on the world
Montgomery built a self-governing Black town that demonstrated the possibility of Black economic and political autonomy, even as his accommodationist 1890 vote inflicted lasting harm on Black voting rights statewide.
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