To answer the question as to the social place of African-American barbers — such as Julius Whales, the subject of my last essay — in Dakota is a complicated matter. The relationship dynamics of a tiny black minority with an overwhelmingly white majority were full of nuance, whereas the historical sources are thin. In 1898 there arose in Edgeley, North Dakota, a case showing how inscrutable those sources can be, even when they are extensive.