Following the end of the Civil War, many former slaves, anxious to leave the South and the increasing disappointments and dangers of Reconstruction, took advantage of The Homestead Act and went West to build new lives for themselves and their families. Many of these homesteaders were black women who overcame tremendous odds to work their own land and make a place for themselves in an often harsh and forbidding environment. Set in 1898, "Flyin' West" by Pearl Cleage is the story of some of these African-American female pioneers who settled together in the all-black town of Nicodemus, Kansas.