African American descendants, community outreach, and the Ransom and Sarah Williams Farmstead Project

ABSTRACT

We participated in the research of a post-emancipation African American site in Texas that involved a community outreach programme with local descendants. We worked with the descendant community in producing knowledge and defining project outcomes, both of which benefitted the research and raised the public visibility of black Texas history and archaeology. Based on our experiences, we discuss how cultural resource management (CRM) firms can play an important role in diversifying the profession, and in engendering a long-term commitment to public archaeology among their employees. There were challenges we encountered working within the context of CRM, including funding allocations and enlisting local descendants in the site excavation, yet we hope that this case study helps to promote community archaeology in future CRM projects.

KEYWORDS:

• Descendant community
• community outreach
• oral history
• African American archaeology
• public archaeology
• CRM

Acknowledgments

We remain grateful to the descendants who supported us and the RSWF project. Our research would not have been possible without their encouragement and contributions, and we are not only better scholars, but better people, for having worked with each of them. Thank you to Anna Agbe-Davies and Doug Boyd for providing constructive feedback on earlier drafts, and to Sam Wilson for producing our map. We also want to thank the editor, Carol McDavid, who is our ideal role model for public archaeology. Our gratitude goes to PAI staff, Aaron Norment and Jennie McWilliams, for their enormous contributions to the project. We’d also like to acknowledge TxDOT staff, Jon Budd and Scott Pletka, for their support. Finally, thank you to our anonymous peer reviewers for their helpful feedback; we appreciate their time and effort in assisting us with improving this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Maria Franklin is an historical archaeologist whose research and teaching interests include race and gender, the African diaspora, and public archaeology.

Nedra Lee is an historical archaeologist who examines the intersection of race and class in the lives of African Americans during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although her research currently focuses on the United States south, she has a burgeoning interest in the archaeology of New England.