the first marshal of the city courts of Topeka from the 1890s to the early 1900s. He was a successful funeral home director, and two of his sons were partners in the business. Stonestreet came to Kansas with his mother and grandmother in 1862, about a year after Kansas was admitted to the Union as the 34th state and fifteen years before African American communities such as Nicodemus were established in Kansas by African Americans from Kentucky during the Reconstruction Era.

Prior to the Civil War, few free African Americans migrated from the slave holding state of Kentucky to the Kansas Territory where bloody confrontations were taking place over the question of Kansas becoming an abolitionist or pro-slavery state. The majority of African Americans leaving Kentucky during this period,both free and escaped slaves, were heading north.

Article from Chicago Metro News 08/08/1979, p. 9

Within the NKAA Database are many stories of individuals who were part of migrations and movements throughout U.S. history. A 20th-century example was John S. Sloan (1918-2001) from Louisville. He was a Tuskegee Airman with the 99th Fighter Squadron, the first African American fighter squadron. Sloan earned a Purple Heart, and after his World War II military service, he and his wife left Kentucky for Chicago where Sloan was employed at Inland Steel. He was the first African American personnel counselor at the company and prior to his retirement, Sloan had advanced to the position of corporate finance manager.

Advertisement in Cleveland Gazette, 04/20/1895, p.3

While not every entry in the NKAA Database will include an