“[The following article was written by Kathryn Henry, a reporter for the Clovis News-Journal, and appeared in the News-Journal last week.]
With a Grandchild or great-grandchild for every one of his 77 years, Frank M. Boyer, resident of Vado, lays claim to being the head of the largest Negro family in New Mexico. He had been a resident of New Mexico 50 years and was a member of one of the survey gangs which laid out the city of Clovis. The aged man is well known to many of the early day residents of Eastern New Mexico.”
Las Cruces Sun-News, Sunday, March 30, 1947
Roswell Daily Record Tuesday, May 4, 1920
In March of 1947, Kathryn Henry, a reporter for the Clovis News-Journal, interviewed a “Vado Negro Leader” named Frank, who claimed to be head of the largest Black family in the State of New Mexico. Francis (Frank) Marion Boyer lived many lives in the Borderlands, and the Blackdom Oil Company was one of them. In Mexico’s northern frontier, Frank co-founded and helped build Blackdom; an institution to generate sovereignty for free people under the condition of Blackness. He delivered on his promise of sovereignty and the evidence showed in him being the head of the largest “Negro” family in New Mexico. Kathryn was the last known person to interview Frank before he passed away two years later in 1949.