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Last weekend I visited the Colonel Allensworth State Historical Park in California’s Central Valley. The park is on the site of Allensworth, a town founded 100 years ago by Colonel Allen Allensworth and four other African American pioneers. Their mission was to create a self-sustaining community where African Americans could build better lives for themselves. A dwindling water supply, diversion of railroad activity to a neighboring town, and the defeat in the State Legislature of a Tuskegee-inspired vocational school envisioned for Allensworth led to the town’s decline, but fortunately its legacy lives on. Here are photos I took during my visit.