Teaching PhilosophyMy approach to teaching and research stem from more than 12 years’ professional experience in community and economic development, grassroots politics, journalism, and nonprofit management. These experiences revealed the ways planners, architects and public officials often underestimate the power of social and cultural capital, subjugate certain knowledge forms, reinforce structural inequalities, and undermine marginalized…
Our Invisible Wakandas: A Black Planning Scholar’s Reflections on Black Panther & Saving Historic Black Places Note: There might be spoilers…and a little rambling. Black Panther was a visual feast. The film was affirming in many ways, problematic in others. I am sharing reflections on the film less as a review, and more on how…
Looking for examples of anti-banking system, anti-respectability, pro-cooperative Black planning &community building? Try 19th Century Texas History. I recently published an article on race gender, planning, and mutual aid called “The Farmers’ Improvement Society and the Women’s Barnyard Auxiliary of Texas: African American Community Building in the Progressive Era,” in the Journal of Planning History.…
Pursing a graduate degree requires discipline and confidence. It is a process that also requires commitment and sustained interest. Doctoral degrees in particular, demand something more than an interest in attaining another credential. You need to be personally invested in the new knowledge you create. Creating new knowledge is a process that simultaneously exposes us…
Update on Rosewood Courts in Austin! Here’s a little background on the Courts: http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/opinion/phillips-rosewood-courts-more-than-worthy-of-histo/nnN5h/ Here’s a snippet of last night’s (follow link) City Historic Landmark Commission meeting on the matter of it being designated a local landmark. See Item 7A 5 Item 7A 5 C14H-2015-0008 Rosewood Courts 2001 Rosewood Avenue Council District 1 Applicant: Fred McGhee; Historic Landmark…
I go through a little music withdrawal whenever I return from dissertation research in East Texas. These are just a few of the songs I miss hearing all the time. I hear them when I go to homecoming celebrations in East Texas, but not so much anywhere else. Some I remember being sung a little…
“The standard image of Southern slavery is that of a large plantation with hundreds of slaves. In fact, such situations were rare. Fully 3/4 of Southern whites did not even own slaves; of those who did, 88% owned twenty or fewer. Whites who did not own slaves were primarily yeoman farmers. Practically speaking, the institution…
Last weekend I attended the Purple Hull Pea Festival in Shankleville, Texas.
