The Mayors of Oklahoma’s Last All-Black Towns Intelligencer 4 days ago Camille Squires
In 1984, Dr. Francis Shelton moved back to Boley, the Oklahoma town where she grew up. She had gotten her degree in another town and worked for years as a biochemist in Oklahoma City; upon returning to Boley, she noticed how many buildings had fallen into disrepair, how commerce had declined. “Our elders were so interested in training us on how to make a living that they didn’t teach us how to make that living here,” says Shelton. She decided to purchase the hardware store, both for the business and to preserve its history: The original owner, T.B. Armstrong, had helped found Boley in 1903 and served as its first mayor, a post Shelton would take up in 2015.