The Texas Freedom Colonies Project

 

Thank you for joining us today (5/21/2020) for our first monthly Facebook live! Please feel free to view and post questions below the video. Learn more about our ongoing engaged research into African American institutions, traditions, cemeteries, landscapes, and community resilience strategies on our website and by following our Facebook page! Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TheTexasFreedomColoniesProject/ Would you like to be a guest? Email us: freedomcoloniesproject@gmail.com   Watch Coffee Talk w/ TxFCP: Covid-19 and Navigating Black Funerals

TEXAS CULTURAL LANDSCAPES SYMPOSIUM 1:00 - 2:00 pm — Making the Invisible Visible: Rural Cultural Landscapes  Hilton Waco, Brazos Ballroom This panel discussion will focus on the identification, documentation, and preservation of rural cultural landscapes in Texas.  Dr. Perky Beisel will share her work with the Voices from Small Places project, which focuses on collaborative, community-focused documentation of the history of places in Texas with fewer than 100 residents. Dr. Andrea Roberts, the founder of the Texas Freedom Colonies Project, will discuss her efforts to protect vanishing communities established by freed slaves in Texas between 1866 and 1920. Sandro Canovas will discuss the cultural importance of adobe to West Texas and the importance of keeping this indigenous building method alive.  His activism has been featured in a recent documentary, which reinforces his message that Adobe is Political.  Moderator: Evan Thompson / Preservation Texas ...

Equity + Freedom's Footprint in Dallas Freedman's Towns from UTA CAPPA on Vimeo . November 18, 2017 Organized by the David Dillon Center for Texas Architecture College of Architecture, Planning, and Public Affairs University of Texas at Arlington Equity + Freedom’s Footprint in Dallas Freedman's Towns is part of the Physical City Track of the festival. That track deepens understanding of how Dallas was historically built to keep groups separate by race and income, and explores what ideas create spaces that bring people together. Andrea Roberts, assistant professor at Texas A&M University and founder of the Texas Freedom Colonies Project, is the keynote speaker.

Announcement! TAMU Scholar Testing Online Black Settlement Atlas, Launching Statewide Survey  The Texas Freedom Colonies Project invites you  to participate in a statewide study & to test a new mapping application! Learn How to Access Portal Here SITE GOES LIVE THURSDAY, JULY 12, 2018, 10 am Dr. Andrea Roberts (The Texas Freedom Colonies Project Founder) and her research team, are excited to announce the launch of a new crowdsourcing project: The Texas Freedom Colonies Atlas along with a survey of settlement locations, preservation activities, and culture. Since 2014, The Texas Freedom Colonies Project has documented Black settlement heritage and grassroots preservation practice among descendants of these historic communities. Freedom Colonies are everywhere, hidden behind the pine curtain of the rural countryside and beneath the concrete landscapes of Houston, Austin, and Dallas. A large number of freedom colonies were never mapped or became "ghos...

Pictured, Mary Shankle (Liberty Community, Newton County) and Gwen Bluiett (Mount Union, Jasper County) at the 2014 Shankleville Homecoming, Photo by Andrea Roberts Andrea Roberts, PhD is the founder of the Texas Freedom Colonies Project and is an Emerging Scholar Fellow at the School of Architecture, University of Texas at Austi n. This presentation represents the culmination of the first phase of her research with descendants of Black settlements (also known as Freedmen's Towns or Freedom Colonies) any of which were founded by former slaves. The presentation was made at the Purple Hull Pea Festival, in Shankleville Texas (a Freedom Colony) . Results of this initial ethnographic and participatory action study were discussed with some of the participants. Email Andrea Roberts to request the PowerPoint presentation that accompanied the audio or to learn more about her research.

The powerpoint below was presented this Friday in Galveston at the 2015 Texas Chapter American Planning Association Conference by Andrea Roberts, University of Texas at Austin/TX Freedom Colonies Project | Lareatha Clay, Shankleville Historical Society | Kim McKnight, City of Austin Here's a summary of what our 1 1/2 hour panel was about: "From 1870 to 1890, in the shadow of Reconstruction and violent nadir of American race relations that followed, former slaves founded more than 500 “Freedom Colonies” or Freedmen’s Towns across Texas. The purpose of this panel is to gain insight into how identity and memory among the dispersed, diasporic of descendants’ associated with Freedom Colonies catalyze their planning and historic preservation activities. How can understanding the way memory is operationalized in Freedom Colony heritage, cemetery, and homestead preservation projects enable public planners and cultural resources management professionals to better serve these enda...

#txfcproject Posted by The Texas Freedom Colonies Project on  Saturday, June 27, 2015

Posted by The Texas Freedom Colonies Project on  Saturday, June 27, 2015