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Historian Timothy E. Nelson, Ph.D.
Keynote Speaker
2022 Annual Meeting
FREE Event, Open to the Public
Friday, November 11, 2022 | 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Underrepresented Groups in New Mexico History
IN-PERSON AND VIRTUAL PRESENTATION
University of New Mexico Campus, Albuquerque
Anthropology Building - Lecture Hall 163
Conference begins Saturday November 12, 2022: Link to Agenda
Keynote Abstract:
Narratives about “frontier” spaces reflect peoples’ entrepreneurship, opportunism, and grit. However, Black Peoples in the same spaces appear feckless side notes to the historical trajectory of history. For example, Blackdom on Wikipedia and in New Mexico’s K-12 Social Studies books project the violent perpetual racialization of Native and Indigenous Peoples; with, purported insignificance of “Black” people in the popular tri-cultural narrative.
The current narratives about Black people migrating from the South to America’s western frontier at the turn of the Twentieth Century fundamentally fails to capture the dynamism. Exoduster is a pervasive term that characterizes the motivations of Black migration narratives in the post-bellum and post-Reconstruction eras as a fear of White people and their violence. The “exodus” captured the idea that Black people migrated to escape the horrors of racist subjugation and violence indicative of Southern politics and culture.
By extension, stories of All-Black (incorporated) Towns describe a promised land—one ordained by God and predetermined for the “refugees.” Scholarly narratives imply Black inferiority or lack control over their fate. As part of this keynote address, The Afro-Frontier Thesis authorizes alternative narratives that quarantine notions, and the effects of White Supremacy to undergird the historical agency of people under the conditions of American Blackness within Mexico’s Northern Frontier.
Following a challenging yet inspiring 2021 and 2022, Dr. Nelson will continue to pursue his search for an academic faculty or public history position that will allow him to continue research and expand upon his scholarship. We are pleased to announce Texas Tech University Press will publish his first Academic book Spring or Summer 2023.