Reconstructing Black Worlds

About

From 1865-1930, formerly enslaved Texans founded 557+ freedom colonies, which are now absent from official maps, have lost population, and their building conditions have declined since the Great Migration. Dr. Andrea Roberts will discuss the contemporary status of these Black communities, diasporic identity, co-curation activities, and research findings associated with The Texas Freedom Colonies Atlas. The Texas Freedom Colonies Project Atlas is a statewide crowdsourcing project which collects stories and memories of disappearing historic Black spaces whose populations have been displaced over time through cultural erasure, resource extraction, and natural disasters. The digital humanities platform has become a medium through which users can resist the deliberate forgetting of black places by documenting intangible dimensions of Black places or worlds. The platform safeguards users’ multilayered recollections allowing them agency over the reconstruction of black spaces. Selected entries in the Atlas include origins stories, church foundings, Rosenwald School locations, local family names, and manifestations of the affective, embodied persistence of place. She begins with a historical overview of freedom colonies followed by a demonstration of the Texas Freedom Colonies Atlas. During her presentation, particular emphasis is placed on the ways African diaspora theory and Black women’s counternarratives in Atlas entries make visible the complex, emotional and cultural geographies and their worldbuilding in communities presumed placeless or deliberately disappeared.