LIVE! Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 6:00pm
Starting Conversations: Blackdom, NM
On February 23rd at 6 pm MST, the New Mexico Humanities Council invites you to join us for a live Zoom discussion on the topic of Blackdom, NM.
MISSED IT? RECORDED YouTube Link: ➡️ Starting Conversations: Blackdom, NM
We will hear from an interdisciplinary panel of speakers who each have unique insights on the cultural and historical significance of the Blackdom township with a live Q&A from the audience to follow.
Blackdom, New Mexico, founded in 1903 by Francis Boyer and twelve other enterprising African Americans, is one of the state’s most important, yet often most overlooked town. Despite its importance and relevance, the history of this township has been obscured from mainstream history for several decades.
Dr. Nelson tracked down descendants of original Blackdomites across the U.S. and found descendants in Compton. These young people are surprised and interested to learn of “black cowboys” in their recent family history.
Dr. Timothy E. Nelson’s dissertation:
The Significance of the Afro-Frontier® in American History: Blackdom, Bawdyhouses, and Barratry in the Borderlands, 1900-1930 tackles foundational issues in African American history, the history of the U.S. West, Borderlands history, and the history of African diasporas.
Once Dr. Nelson discovered and delved into the forgotten history of Blackdom, the seemingly disparate chapters of his life began to seem intertwined.
In returning to her home state of New Mexico, Ms. Allen has also researched the history of Blackdom, the first all-Black settlement in the state, in an effort to rectify the erasure of the Black botanical contributions and highlight the Black botanical experience.
Maya L. Allen is a Ph.D. student in Biology at the University of New Mexico who focuses on how plants cope with environmental heterogeneity and a particular underlying mechanism, phenotypic plasticity - the ability for a single genotype to differentially express alternative phenotypes based on the environment.
Janice Dunahoo is an Archivist for the Historical Society of Southeastern New Mexico; Public Historical Speaker for local Government and Civic Organizations; Contributing author for publications such as West Texas Historical Association Newsletter, Wild West Journal, True West magazine, Texas-New Mexico Border Archives Journal, Roswell Daily Record newspaper; Weekly Historical Columnist for Roswell Daily Record newspaper, and (Roswell, New Mexico) under the heading of “Historically Speaking”.
Contributing author for a book titled “Notable Black Women in Texas History,” which is in progress; and a panelist for the Western History Association Conference 2020 via Dr. Nelson.
She has studied Blackdom at length and has presented over this topic at the university and public school levels.
Geni Flores is the coordinator of bilingual and TESOL education at Eastern New Mexico University. She is a former instructor of Multicultural Education including “the Multicultural Heritage of the Southwest.”