This is the legendary tale of O.T. Jackson and the Colorado Black ghost town of Dearfield.

How do you get a whole race of people to uplift themselves after years of persecution? This was the very question Colonel Allen Allensworth asked himself before he embarked on one of the most important journeys in African American history: to build the first Black self-sufficient town in California.

The story of Oliver Toussaint and Colorado’s historic all-Black settlement of Dearfield is very interesting. But this is Black Folklore and our job is to dig a little deeper–to find the story within the story that every great masterpiece encompasses. This is the legendary tale of O.T. Jackson.