Celebrate Black Iowa History: In 1851 Iowa’s State Legislature adopted a law forbidding black and mulatto settlement into Iowa, although current residents were permitted to stay and keep any property they owned. The 1851 law was successfully challenged in district court by Archie P. Webb in 1863, where the judge ruled the exclusionary law violated the Iowa Constitution and its guarantee that "all men are by nature free and independent, and have certain unalienable rights." A year later, the Iowa Legislature repealed the exclusionary law.

Read about the case in Annals of Iowa: https://tinyurl.com/ArchiePWebb

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