Grant Proposal: TX Freedom Colonies Project's Plan to Preserve Endangered Historic Black Settlements & Cemeteries
| dc.date.accessioned | 2022-02-15T04:37:56Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2022-02-15T04:37:56Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2022-02-14 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/195454 | |
| dc.description | The project goal is to produce a strategic & technical project plan for The Texas Freedom Colonies Project’s Atlas & Survey (TXFCP) platform. Freedom colonies, historic African American settlements founded 1865-1920 in Texas, are most recognizable by landscape elements-cemeteries, homesteads, churches, &schools. Today, natural disasters, gentrification, & sprawl threaten freedom colonies’ cultural assets. The Project lead's previous work in Newton & Jasper counties revealed that atrisk place & cultural asset location knowledge are embedded in oral histories. An organized approach to crowdsourcing, recording, storing, & analyzing agingTexas A&M University 6 descendants’ memories of freedom colonies & cemetery locations & ways to contact constituencies is needed urgently. The TXFCP Atlas & Study has hosted an interactive public map & survey since July 12, 2018. However, the accompanying website & ArcGIS map (http://www.thetexasfreedomcoloniesproject.com/) requires an integrated engagement & cultural resource survey system plan. Focusing on cemetery preservation presents the opportunity to identify, map & store data about cemeteries, which are proxies for freedom colonies. The Plan is intended to create a foundation for platforms, research, & engagement strategies for use by not only grassroots preservationists & professionals in Texas, but in other states. Notably, The TXFC Project method focuses on African American social networks, which have been proven to sustain descendants’ attachment & commitment to place preservation. Stories & social networks associated w/annual homecomings, heritage festivals, & reunions are the vehicles through which cooperative cemetery maintenance & fundraising is conducted. Similarly, the African American Burial Grounds Network Act requires engaged cemetery preservation, which leverages social capital embedded in such networks. The goals of the Act are consistent with that of the proposed grant project. For example, both the Act & this proposal support working w/ state, local, & non-profit groups, “educating the public and providing technical assistance for community members... to research, survey, identify, record, and preserve burial sites and cemeteries within the Network.” Like the Act, the Project Plan will articulate ways the Atlas can support participation in a voluntary database of burial grounds detected during surveys of freedom colony cultural resources, provision of technical assistance related to assessment, and increase access to educational materials to descendant communities. The Plan will address ways to capture & aggregate data within existing local networks, which will support the Act’s aims. | en |
| dc.description.abstract | The project goal is to produce a strategic & technical project plan for The Texas Freedom Colonies Project’s Atlas & Survey (TXFCP) platform. Freedom colonies, historic African American settlements founded 1865-1920 in Texas, are most recognizable by landscape elements-cemeteries, homesteads, churches, &schools. Today, natural disasters, gentrification, & sprawl threaten freedom colonies’ cultural assets. The Project lead's previous work in Newton & Jasper counties revealed that atrisk place & cultural asset location knowledge are embedded in oral histories. An organized approach to crowdsourcing, recording, storing, & analyzing agingTexas A&M University 6 descendants’ memories of freedom colonies & cemetery locations & ways to contact constituencies is needed urgently. The TXFCP Atlas & Study has hosted an interactive public map & survey since July 12, 2018. However, the accompanying website & ArcGIS map (http://www.thetexasfreedomcoloniesproject.com/) requires an integrated engagement & cultural resource survey system plan. Focusing on cemetery preservation presents the opportunity to identify, map & store data about cemeteries, which are proxies for freedom colonies. | en |
| dc.description.sponsorship | Mellon Foundation, National Trust for Historic Preservation | en |
| dc.rights | Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International | en |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ | |
| dc.subject | environmental justice, historic black settlements, Texas, cemeteries, historic preservation | en |
| dc.title | Grant Proposal: TX Freedom Colonies Project's Plan to Preserve Endangered Historic Black Settlements & Cemeteries | en |
| dc.type | Other | en |
| local.department | Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning | en |
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