The Boley Progress. (Boley, Indian Terr.), Vol. 1, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 6, 1905 - Page 1 of 4 - The Gateway to Oklahoma History

The Boley Progress. (Boley, Indian Terr.), Vol. 1, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 6, 1905 - Page 1 of 4 - The Gateway to Oklahoma History

From a front page editorial in a newspaper urging black settlement in and around Boley, Indian Territory. "In the states today where the affairs are controlled by Democratic legislatures the hand of tyranny is felt by the Negro. In the states where the Republicans are in authority the Negro has a full exercise of his political rights. The old Republican party has ever been faithful and true to its principals taught.... The great Republican party, with President Theodore Roosevelt at its head, has ever been for the protection of the Afro-American. There has been no discrimination. They have, when expedient, appointed Negroes to positions of honor and trust."

Related, from the same day's Muskogee Cimeter, a black-owned newspaper:

"Negroes who worked for the democrat ticket are not worth their room in hell and the sooner these cusses get home to their Master, the devil, the better it will be for the race."

And from page 4, "Muskogee is a republican town that elects democrat officials because the republicans are such d--n fools they cannot get together. The Negroes were loyal to the ticket in the main but the great majority of white republicans refused to vote the ticket because there were Negroes on it...."