The Enduring Allure of Oklahoma's Black Towns
By the early 20th century, Oklahoma had more than 50 rural communities known as Black towns. The towns provided much-needed safety, security and material resources for Black Americans during the post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras. In this talk I begin by discussing Black town formation, social organization and economic activity that sustained the communities during the late 19th-early 20th century. I then discuss the communities’ 21st century status as both fragile and energetic spaces. I argue that, even as they struggle as rural Black communities, Black towns are sustained in part by their commitment to celebrating and honoring their history, Blackness and community, which attracts interest far and wide.
Dr. Karla Slocum
Dr. Karla Slocum is a professor in the Department of Anthropology and adjunct faculty in the Department of African, African American and Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on the significance and meanings of place among historic and rural Black communities. She is the author of Free Trade and Freedom: Neoliberalism, Place and Nation in the Caribbean (University of Michigan Press, 2006) and Black Towns, Black Futures: The Enduring Allure of a Black Place in the American West (UNC Press, 2019).