Paradise

In Stones from the Creek, the story "In the Midst of the Valley" deals with the quest of a young Black man, Ezekiel Payne, for a Black Zion.  The title refers to the Book of Ezekiel and the vision of the dry bones, the renewal of a people.  For the Biblical Ezekiel it was about the return to Zion from the Babylonian captivity after the destruction of Solomon's temple.  For the cavalryman Ezekiel Payne it is about "a place where a Black man can stand up with nobody to tear him down," a New Africa "where people like him could walk confident that nobody would try to humiliate them or harm them because of their race."

Ezekiel Payne looks for his Black Zion in the Indian Territory because an African Seminole scout befriends him and invites him to come home with him after their Army service.  He sees glimpses of possibility there, but when his Creek Indian wife and in-laws reject him and their daughter Nessa, he moves on to the new Black town of Boley.

Boley was one of many all-Black towns that sprang up in the Indian Territory before its admission -- along with the "twin" Oklahoma Territory -- into the US as the State of Oklahoma.  It was an effort to escape from economic and political subordination, discrimination and racial violence.  There were also African towns among the Native Americans of the Territory, some of which welcomed Blacks from the states.  It is an important chapter in US history that is not well known.  Boley still exists today as a town of 1100 people, about 40% of whom are African American, with a high school that has fifteen kids.  Many of the other towns are gone.

Toni Morrison's Paradise deals with a fictional town of poorer (and darker skinned) African Americans who were rejected by the all-Black town that they leave the south to join.  They form a town of their own and a world of their own.  In Morrison's book, this separation and exclusivity eventually corrode their collective soul.

Ezekiel Payne sees most of his future in his daughter, Nessa.  He moves to Boley with some hope for the town and more for her education.  His dream of Zion lives, but is receding.