In the late spring of 1921, Josie Gatlin, a resident of Okmoggi, Oklahoma, saw a note

come through the crack beneath her door.

She picked it up, she read it, and immediately realized that she was in danger, just like

the other 3,000 black residents in her town.

When notes came through your door, saying, leave now or suffer the consequences.

The warning was clear, and so was the choice.

What are you going to do?

You're going to pack up and leave.

Josie Gatlin, like many people, feared for her life, feared the Ku Klux Klan and had

to get out.

The threat was delivered on cards, commanding black residents to leave the state or suffer

the consequences.

Even a local newspaper allegedly published a similar warning.

For a black citizen of Oklahoma, this threat was real.

Terrifyingly real.

Josie Gatlin was determined to escape the terror, and she, like many others, knew where to go.

The black star line.

The black star line company was a fleet of passengerships Josie assumed she'd board

in New York City that would take her to safety and real freedom in Liberia, West Africa.

The black star line becomes somewhat of an embodiment of the possibility of black independence.

So people like Josie Gatlin believed that the black star line and Liberia offered an

opportunity for their salvation.

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