Tulsa native’s book explores untold story of Black statehood efforts in Oklahoma

A new historical work is bringing fresh attention to one of Oklahoma’s most ambitious but often overlooked political movements: Edward McCabe’s late 19th-century campaign to make the state a haven for Black Americans.

Tulsa native and professor Caleb Gayle has released a book chronicling McCabe’s efforts in the 1890s to establish Oklahoma, then still a territory, as an all-Black state. Gayle says the project was inspired by McCabe’s “massive, all-encompassing dream” to create a refuge for African Americans escaping Jim Crow laws and racial violence in the South.

“It gave me the opportunity and excuse to come back home and to spend my time in the archives with people who hold these oral histories so tightly,” said Gayle, who grew up in Tulsa. “It brought me closer to the place that raised me.”

Although he grew up in Oklahoma, Gayle says he was never taught much about McCabe’s legacy, or even about the Tulsa Race Massacre, while in school. Through his research, he hopes to reintroduce Oklahomans to a story that is both educational and entertaining, offering a deeper understanding of the state’s complex history.

An overlooked chapter in Oklahoma history

Reverend A. Byron Coleman of Fifth Street Baptist Church, who taught Gayle at the University of Oklahoma, called the book “brilliant, insightful, and engaging.”

“It's a story of not just conquest, but also liberation and freedom and goals and aspiration and ambition,” Coleman said. “It is an absolutely awesome book.”

Coleman noted that even as a history educator, the book revealed new details, particularly about towns in Kansas where McCabe established settlements before moving his efforts to Oklahoma.

“There are so many stories that don't go told, that are untold, that are unresearched,” Coleman said. “For Caleb to dive into this just speaks to his brilliance and who he is as a scholar.”

Upcoming signing event in Oklahoma City

Gayle will discuss the book with Coleman during a public event Wednesday at Full Circle Bookstore, 1900 Northwest Expressway, Oklahoma City. The event begins at 6:30 p.m.

Coleman said Gayle’s book events in other cities have drawn large crowds and expects strong interest in Oklahoma City as well.

“So if you want the opportunity to, in an entertaining way, rediscover the state in which you live, I invite you to read this book,” Gayle said.