The African American Community in Albuquerque

Overview and Brief History:
At the time of the 2000 Census, 13,854 African-Americans lived in Albuquerque, representing 3% of the city’s population. The African continent was the original home of this ethnic community, but most of its members are many centuries and multiple generations away from their African roots. Although there are a few overt remnants of African tribal cultures that remain at this point in the United States, most notably among the Gullah people in East Georgia, most African Americans have assimilated into American culture. However, there are a few outward manifestations of African culture that do remain, many of which manifest themselves in foods still common in African-American cuisine.

Immigration to the United States and Albuquerque:
The sad history of the forced immigration of the African American people to the United States is well-known at this point in time. Almost all were brought to this country as slaves, first by the Spanish and the Dutch West India Company, and later by a multitude of other slave traders, including the Portugese, British, and the Americans themselves..

The first African to arrive in New Mexico was the slave, Esteban, who after his capture by the Spanish in Morocco, accompanied the few survivors of the shipwrecked exploration led by Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca in his epic 1530's journey across the American Southwest to Mexico. Esteban, also known as Estevanico, returned to New Mexico in 1539 as a guide for the Franciscan priest Marcos di Niza in his unsuccessful search for the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola, and was killed at the Zuni Pueblo of Hawikuh.
 

According to surviving Spanish documents, there were several African slaves on the Coronado Expedition. Only two of them, another Moor named Esteban who served under Alarcón, and one named Sebastián, who remained behind at Tiguex, are identified. There were five unknown male and three unknown African slaves, and male mulatto named Cristobal Lopez, in Don Juan de Oñate’s party of settlers in 1598. One of these five Negroes, possibly named Juan, fought alongside Vicente Záldivar at the battle of Acoma. A mulatto female named Ísabel de Olvera accompanied the Juan Guerra de Resa’s relief expedition in 1600. De Vargas’ party in the 1692 reconquest of New Mexico after the 1680 Pueblo Revolt was accompanied by two Africans, a Congolese named Francisco Rico, and an Angolan named Sebastian Rodriguez Brito. Brito served as De Vargas’ personal drummer and accompanied him on many military campaigns.

In 1828, shortly following its independence from Spain, Mexico outlawed the practice of slavery in the Southwest. The few blacks who came to New Mexico under Mexican rule were typically fur trappers like the legendary James Beckwourth. Beckwourth resided in Fort Vasquez 1836-40 and married a Santa Fe women. He left the state but returned as a member of Kearney’s conquering army in 1847. Soon after New Mexico became a part of the United States, an unratified constitution drafted in 1850 banned slavery in New Mexico. Slavery was officially abolished in New Mexico in 1861, one year before the U.S. Congress outlawed it.

In the 1870's, the town of Dora, in the Cimarron Valley, was first settled by freed slaves. Black cowboys, and Buffalo Soldiers were some of the late nineteenth century African-Americans who came to New Mexico. At the turn of the twentieth century, an ex-slave named Francis Boyer from Georgia established an all black town near Roswell named Blackdom whose eventual populace of 500 was recruited from the surrounding states of Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Sadly, Blackdom was a victim of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression and was abandoned; but Boyer successfully recreated the experiment south of Las Cruces in a town named Vado, which survives to this day.

The first significant wave African-Americans immigration to Albuquerque occurred in the late 1870's with the coming of the Santa Fe Railroad. Black railroad employees mostly lived in the downtown area. A Negro man was involved in helping to establish the University of New Mexico. By 1910, when the Black population reached 244, they had expanded to all quadrants of the city except for the southeast Huning Highland neighborhood, which was predominantly occupied by Anglo railroad workers. Hispanic railroad worker’s primarily lived in the barrio of Barelas south of downtown but also in an area known as San Jose across the tracks. Those African Americans not occupied by the railroad became entrepreneurs by necessity, starting up their own businesses when discriminatory whites refused to employ them. These small business people offered a broad spectrum of services, from contracting and construction to housing travelers in boarding houses. They even published their own newspapers, such as the Plain Dealer.

In the 1930's-40's, Black families began moving into the Huning Highland neighborhood as Whites migrated eastward. Aided by a community network of informal financing, they were able to purchase homes. This entrepreneurship was necessary as local banks refused to offer mortgage loans to African Americans. Discrimination was still quite common and legal. Many of the properties were in need of repair and their values were dropping; but the new Black owners were unable to obtain loans to renovate them. Eventually most of them sold the houses and moved into newer houses that were being built south of Huning Highland and east of South Broadway. For many years the black community was segregated and was only “allowed” to live in a few neighborhoods in the city, notably South Broadway and the Kirtland Addition although there was a small Black neighborhood north of Lomas. This began to change in the 1950's, even before the Civil Rights Act came into being.

In 1940, there were 547 African Americans and by 1950, only 613. From this point forward the population grew exponentially, reaching 3,563 in 1960, 6,689 in 1970, 11,487 in 1990, and 13,864 today. Most people interviewed in our survey came to Albuquerque after 1970 and many of these people learned of New Mexico and Albuquerque during military service in the state. Many stayed or relocated to Albuquerque from other bases following their discharge from the service.

Cultural Traditions:
As mentioned at the beginning of this report, except for small remnants of phrases still found among the Gullah people of the Geogia Sea Islands, modern African-Americans have long lost their African tribal linguistic heritages. English is the predominant language, although one encounters many bilingual (Spanish and English) African-Americans in the Southwest.

Food traditions have survivedconsiderably longer. Okra and watermelon are two examples of early African contributions to the American diet that remain to this day. While barbecue has not been historically traced to Africa, it is a very popular staple in the African American diet. There are many different types of barbecue styles and sauces that are usually identified regionally, such as Kansas City or Texas style. Two entrepreneurs, Pete Powdrell and Henry Clopton separately pioneered barbecue (or BBQ) restaurants in Albuquerque in the 1960's.

Integral to the culture of the Albuquerque African-American community is the Christian church. The first, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, began in 1882. It was followed in 1898 by the Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church. Today there are close to fifty different churches in Albuquerque that connect the members of the African American community with each other.

Artistic Traditions:
African Americans are well known for their creativity and have added much in the way of music, dance, theater, and visual arts to American culture. While many of the African artistic traditions have largely disappeared with the assimilation of Blacks into mainstream American culture, the roots of them still show in the distinctive output of this community.

With the exception of gospel singing which remains quite strong in Albuquerque churches, most of the earlier traditional musical styles, such as string band music, are no longer practiced in the community. There were Black swing musicians in the 1920's-40's and there was a restaurant and lounge called Chet & Pert’s that catered to the African American residents. Since the 1950's, after segregation laws began to be relaxed, there have been many Black jazz players playing in local clubs. But not all African Americans simply play Black music, and Albuquerque has produced some very talented classical players as well. Albuquerque has also produced some award-winning African American storytellers. There is an organization called Communi-Culture Performing Arts Company that produces mostly Black theater, although they present other cultures as well. They have organized a Multi-Cultural Storytelling Festival and have joined the State Fair Committee and the Juneteenth Committee to try to tie in with community events.

There are also quite talented visual artists in the community. A directory published in 1976 listed seven artists and an African wood carver. Currently there is a New Mexico African-American Artists’ Guild which supports many local artists. It has been in existence for approximately 10 years. Members have shown their work jointly at the Kimo Theater, the South Broadway Cultural Center, Magnifico. The Guild was involved in planning for the African-American Pavilion at the New Mexico State Fair. In our survey we discovered painters, potters, and woodcarvers all actively and professionally plying their trade.

Of all of the traditional visual arts once practiced, quilting still remains among African American women. Besides simply creating functional art, quilting circles also provide a social atmosphere for women to exchange information and aid each other.

Annual Events and Celebrations:
Predominant among all current celebrations in the African American Community in Albuquerque is Juneteenth. The celebration of Juneteenth traces its roots to Texas in 1865. June 19, to be precise. That is the day that one U.S. Army Major General Gordon Granger landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the Civil War had ended and that slaves were now free. It is typically celebrated on whatever June Saturday falls on a date between the 13th and 19th. Speakers, musicians, dancers, and more typically perform on stage while concessions, especially food concessions like BBQ, are sold. In Albuquerque, the event is usually held at a city park or Community Center, although it has been held at the Fairgrounds as well.

Kwanzaa is a festival that is celebrated from December 26th through January 1st. It is celebrated by some African Americans in Albuquerque. Kwanzaa is a cultural holiday, not a religious one, thus available to and practiced by Africans of all religious faiths who come together based on the rich, ancient and varied common ground of their Africanness.

Kwanzaa's origins are in the first harvest celebrations of Africa from which it takes its name. The name Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase "matunda ya kwanza" which means "first fruits" in Swahili, a Pan-African language which is the most widely spoken African language. The first-fruits celebrations are recorded in African history as far back as ancient Egypt and Nubia and appear in ancient and modern times in other classical African civilizations such as Ashantiland and Yorubaland.

Conclusions:
The African American community is networked by many means. The churches, as noted above, are an integral part of this network. There is also a monthly news magazine, Perspective, that serves to keep the community informed. There are many social clubs that connect the community. The oldest of these is the Home Circle. Some others are the Eureka Matron Club, the and Futurity Club. The Albuquerque Independent Society, which was established in 1912 became the Albuquerque NAACP in 1913.

Two sororities, the Delta’s and Alpha Kappa Alpha, help young Black women to attend colleges and universities. These sororities work with young women aged 11 to 19 and provide after school tutoring in college preparation, writing, and public presentations. They also offer scholarship support for these young women to attend college based upon academic performance in high school. The Charlie Morrissey Scholarship Committee awards scholarships to African-American women who choose to go back to school after age 35.

The South Broadway Cultural Center was originally built for this community and at one point served as the Black community’s center. However, the time constraints and bureaucracy that have become attached to this City facility tend to inhibit its accessibility for many in the Black community. Another venue, the African-American Cultural Center, was founded in 1981. This private non-profit center contains a catalogued library of historical information and also provides media coverage of events in the community.

Some in the Black community would like to establish a Black museum and hope to locate it downtown. A committee has chosen officers to help guide the development of this museum, achieving non-profit status, and raising funds. A few years ago, the Black community statewide helped establish the African American Pavilion at the New Mexico State Fairgrounds, and this helps to bring the community together each Fall.