After Emancipation, Black Americans built hundreds of their own towns: municipalities, districts, and settlements across the country, founded on the belief that freedom should come with land, self-rule, and a future.

Many thrived. Boley, Oklahoma. Nicodemus, Kansas. Blackdom, New Mexico. Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Then came the violence, the policy, the highways, the "urban renewal": and town after town was destroyed, dispersed, or paved over.

All Black Towns is a music project to honor every one of them: one town, one song, one story at a time. Each song carries the town's real history in its lyrics, so the names live in melody even where the buildings are gone.

The project is also a living archive: the lyrics are documented, the research is sourced, and the catalog grows as more towns are found and more songs are written.

This is history you can hear.