This past Tuesday, Beck Foundation Treasurer Corey Beck presented Roberts Settlement President LaVella Hyter with donations in support of their programming and restoration projects. Hyter said they grateful to receive a new projector and screen for their presentations, as well as a check for the restoration of their interior Chapel doors.
About Historic Roberts Settlement
Just to the east of U.S. 31 on 276th Street in western Jackson Township stands the remains of an African American pioneer farm settlement. It was founded in 1835 by free Blacks of mixed racial heritage who migrated mostly from North Carolina and Virginia to escape deteriorating racial conditions in the South.
The majority of pioneers had the Roberts surname, but other families such as the Waldens, Winburns, Rices and Gilliams also made this migration over a period of 20 to 30 years in the mid-1800s. Their goals were the pursuit of economic, educational and religious aspirations with greater freedom and fewer racial barriers.
These goals were achieved through considerable hard work and the assistance of friendly and racially tolerant white neighbors of the Quaker and Wesleyan faiths living in the surrounding area.
Today, set on a gently rolling landscape with many woods and small streams, such as Little Cicero Creek, are a chapel and cemetery.
Learn more at robertssettlement.org.