Willina Hickman was 30 when she arrived here in 1878, and she found it difficult to contain her horror at what she saw. Years later she recalled: "I looked with all the eyes I had. 'Where is Nicodemus? I don't see it.' " Nicodemus, Kan., was founded by freed slaves and is populated by their descendants. Ora Switzer, 102, is its oldest resident. "The families lived in dugouts," she said. "The scenery was not at all inviting, and I began to cry." Nicodemus was home to some 600 black settlers, mostly former slaves from Kentucky. It was among the first...