The Texas Freedom Colonies Project

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 ...

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.