We do not know who would be regarded as the first African American pioneer in Tempe after the city was founded in 1871. However, official proof of Black settlement came in 1888 when pioneer Mary Green filed a homestead claim on 160 acres in Section 15 of the Kyrene agricultural district, better known as south Tempe today. Several of Green’s children made homes around Tempe and its expansive irrigation district in the 1890s and early 1900s. Although little is known beyond the Green family about early Black settlers locally, pioneers Maggie and Thoedore Thomas established a home on Maple Avenue in the early 1900s and opened a barber shop on Mill Avenue just north of the Hotel Casa Loma. From these two families and at least a handful of other lesser-known African American pioneers springs forth the origins of the history of Tempe’s Black residents.          

Facing many of the challenges in Tempe and in Arizona more widely – that they had hoped to leave in other parts of the United States from which they had left – African Americans came to the Salt River Valley in small, but increasing numbers. Black settlers established communities around the Arizona Territory, like those in Phoenix, Mesa, and Chandler. But while Arizonans celebrated statehood in 1912, Tempe was developing a reputation as a sundown town. This meant that Tempe was known as a town that was not welcoming to Black Americans. Although at this time, no city ordinances are known that enforced this ugly status, a culture was in place at the individual, community, and local government level that helped to create the same result as if such racist attitudes were codified by law. In the 1920s, this trend toward sundown town status was reinforced by the racial exclusions written into housing covenants and the arrival of the Ku Klux Klan, which established itself in Tempe as Butte Klan No. 3.

But at the same time, a relative handful of resilient Black residents made Tempe their home. A very small number lived within the limits of incorporated Tempe through the 1940s, while more Black residents lived on the farms and ranches that made up the large irrigation district that comprises most of incorporated Tempe today. As early as 1920, African Americans attended the Normal School, now known as Arizona State University. However, they were excluded from the cafeteria, the dorms and even basic facilities, like restrooms. The need for Black teachers brought more students to Arizona State, and the numbers increased after World War II. In the early 1950s, an overcrowded school district in south Phoenix resulted in Black students from the neighboring farm community of Okemah transferring to the Tempe School District No.3 and to Tempe Union High School. By the 1960s, programs like those instituted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development helped to push open Tempe doors long kept shut for African American home buyers. So even if Tempe’s sundown days yielded slowly, yield they did.        

According the 2020 U.S. census, Black Tempeans make up 11,393 of our city’s 180,587 residents overall. In the face of adversity, challenges, and the slow pace of many changes, African Americans in Tempe have shown determination, grit, and a powerful love of community.  Their efforts have resulted in tremendous accomplishments, from education to teaching and numerous academic accomplishments, to careers in military service, law enforcement and government service, private sector, community service, leadership and administration, politics, and range of other fields of endeavor.  Among the many achievements reached by Black Tempeans, include Mayor Corey Woods – elected to City Council in 2008, and elected Mayor in 2020; Berdetta Hodge – elected to Tempe Union High School District Governing Board in 2016, and elected to City Council in 2022; Jeffrey Glover – over 20 years of service with the Tempe Police Department, hired as Chief of Police in 2021, and appointed Director of the Arizona Department of Public Safety in 2023; and the list goes on.  These and many other Black residents of Tempe achieved important “Firsts” – whether in politics, community service, education, and other fields – but their efforts have not stopped there as these community members have shown their determination to continue to make our city a place of greater opportunities for all Tempeans in the future.

"Firsts" by African Americans in Tempe

Territorial Tempe (Through 1912)

• Mary Green is the first known African American to make a homestead claim in Tempe – she filed on 160 acres at the northwest corner of modern Warner and Rural Roads (1888).

• Steven Archie Jones is the first African American child known to have been born in Tempe. Born to Ada (Green) Jones and Edward D. Jones (1894).

• Ada (Green) Jones marries Joseph Alexander Lewis. They are the first Black couple known to wed in Tempe (1896).

• In the early 1900s, Black Tempe pioneer Theodore C. Thomas helps to promote and organize excursions to Tucson for a grand picnic celebrating emancipation from slavery on June 19. Although unnamed, there is no doubt that this event is Juneteenth, and is the first known instance of a Tempe resident celebrating the Juneteenth holiday (1908).

1910s-1960s

• Benton James was the first African American graduate of ASU (1924).

• Stella McHenry was the first African American female graduate of ASU (1925).

• The Dunbar Social & Literary Society was the first social organization formed for African American students at ASU. The Society was named in honor of Paul Laurence Dunbar, a highly renowned Black American poet of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries (1934).

• Emerson Harvey was the first African American football player at ASU. He started playing in 1937.

• Geneva Epps Mosley was the first African American educator hired to teach in Tempe Elementary School District No.3 (1960).

• Jesse Wilmer Jones achieved two “firsts” when he earned his PhD at ASU. Dr. Jones was the first African American PhD recipient at ASU.  He was also the first ASU student (of any background) to earn his PhD in chemistry at ASU (1963).

• Warren and Carol Livingston were the first African Americans to buy property in Tempe (1965).

•  Dr. John Edwards became the first Black professor at ASU after his promotion from instructor to assistant professor in the School of Education (1966).

1970s-1990s

• Joshua Bursh and Charles Murray were the first African Americans to graduate from Arizona State University Law School (1970).

• Clovis Campbell was the first African American elected to the Arizona State Senate (1972).

• Ed "Butch" Cowings was the first African American officer on the Tempe Police force. He joined the force in 1974.

• Dr. Betty Greathouse was the first African American to serve on the Women’s Intercollegiate Athletic Board at Arizona State University (1973) and the first African American female member of Arizona State University’s Athletic Board (1976). She also was the first African American Tempe All American Woman Educator, selected by the Arizona Women’s Partnership and then-Mayor Harry Mitchell (1985).

• Cecil Patterson earned his law degree at Arizona State University and became the first African American Superior Court Judge (1980), later serving on the Appellate Court.

• Gladys Styles Johnston, Dean of Education, became the first African American Dean at ASU (1986).

2000-Present

• Corey Woods was the first African American to serve on the Tempe City Council. He was elected to City Council in 2008.

• Jeffrey Glover was the first Black officer promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in the history of the Tempe Police Department (2012).

• Berdetta Hodge won election to the Tempe Union High School District Governing Board. In doing so, she became the first Black woman elected to public office in Tempe’s history (2016).

• Corey Woods became the first African American elected as Mayor of Tempe (2020).

• Police veteran Jeffrey Glover became the first African American hired to serve as Chief of the Tempe Police Department (2021).

• Berdetta Hodge becomes the first African American woman elected to Tempe City Council (2022).

• Dr. Dorothy Jean Tillman II earned her doctorate in integrated behavioral health from the College of Health Solutions at ASU – at age 17, she defended her dissertation, becoming the youngest person to graduate with a doctorate at ASU (2024).

Facts

• Lifelong educator Love Hattan Jordan received her teaching certificate from ASU in 1928. Mrs. Jordan taught for many years in Gila Bend, Coolidge, and Safford. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Education from ASU (1939) and began work on a master’s degree in the 1950s. Mrs. Jordan also raised seven children (her youngest arrived in 1930). 

• Warren Livingston from Tempe played pass defense for the Dallas Cowboys from 1961-1966.  

• Eugene Grigsby and Roosevelt Woods were two African American art professors at Arizona State University who became nationally acclaimed artists. 

• Theodore & Maggie Thomas were Black pioneer entrepreneurs who opened a barber shop on Mill Avenue in 1906. Their properties downtown included a home on Maple Avenue and a group of cottages near the south end of the old Ash Avenue Bridge.  They leased cottages to African American students attending ASU, who practically had no opportunities for housing in Tempe, which was fast becoming a sundown town by the 1920s.  The Thomas were involved in a variety of social, community, and church-related causes throughout their lives.

• Okemah is established in the 1910s, just west of 48^th Street and north of Broadway Road. Originally settled by Black farmworkers from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana, Okemah is within Phoenix city limits, but it is associated more with Tempe (1910s – 1980s).

• Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at Arizona State University in June 1964 before an audience of 8,000 people. His speech – “Religious Witness to Human Dignity” – can be heard at this ASU website.