Chronicling the stories and resilience of Texas freedom colonies facing erasure, and of the efforts of descendant community members to safeguard them. Since Emancipation, Deep East Texas has been a place where Black Texans have experienced oppression yet also have created free Black communities. Well into the Jim Crow era, the area was home to…
WPPB Image Addons Dr. Andrea Roberts is an Associate Professor of Urban + Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia’s School of Architecture and has been appointed Co-Director of the School’s Center for Cultural Landscapes. She is a scholar-activist who brings 12 years of experience in community development, nonprofit administration, and advocacy to her…
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.…
By Andrea Roberts* I spoke yesterday with Jeremy Nelloms, descendant of Nancy Bradshaw. Nancy Bradshaw was a former slave who attained an impressive 300 acres of land after emancipation located in today’s northeast Houston, Texas. The land is located a few blocks off I-10 East. Her family still owns the land, and the historic African…
As much as I would love to let sleeping dogs lie, I had to post this to reiterate what i see as the significances of the Paula Deen case. This is indeed not a matter of deciding whether what a celebrity says matters or not, or whether we should forgive. This must be lifted from…
My husband asked me to accompany him to Philly for work this past week. Though I’m a bit busy, I am so glad I took the time to return to the city I called home for four years. While there, I was able to walk about my old neighborhood, eat at our favorite restaurants, and…
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy This is a “Before I die…” board. Another ingenious project from Ted Fellow Candy Chang. It is a wonderful, sublime, yet sobering attempt to jolt people from the mundanity of their everyday lives and alienation from place to address a core question, what mark…
