African-American Heritage in the Midwest
Speaker Series, 2008
This series of public talks and discussions among audience members
concerning the heritage of African Americans in the Midwest is sponsored by
the New Philadelphia Association, with the generous cooperation of Sprague's
Kinderhook Lodge and the Illinois State Museum. This program is made possible
in part by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council, the National Endowment
for the Humanities, and the Illinois General Assembly. This series of public
presentations and discussions includes the following seven events.
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History and Archaeology of African Americans in Industrial Communities of Iowa
Presented by Prof. David Gradwohl
Date and time: June 3, 2008, 7:00 pm
Location: Kinderhook Lodge, 22168 State Highway 106, Barry, Illinois 62312
(telephone 217-432-1090). Additional details and driving directions for the
Kinderhook Lodge, which is located between the towns of Kinderhook and
Barry on Rt. 106, are available on the internet at:
http://www.kinderhooklodge.com.
Dr. David Gradwohl is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Iowa State
University, and received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard University in
1967. Among his numerous scholarly accomplishments and publications, Dr.
Gradwohl directed a multi-year historical and archaeological research project
concerning Buxton, Iowa, an African-American community that existed during
the early 20th century, as detailed in his co-authored book "Exploring Buried
Buxton: Archaeology of an Abandoned Iowa Coal Town with a Large Black
Population" (1984). His presentation and discussion will address the history of
changing perspectives of African-American history and insights from his long-
term research concerning the social history of the many African Americans
who worked and lived in the industrial town of Buxton.
****
Archaeology, Civic Engagement, and Racism in American History
Presented by Prof. Paul Shackel
Date and time: June 10, 2008, 7:00 pm
Location: Kinderhook Lodge, 22168 State Highway 106, Barry, Illinois.
Dr. Paul Shackel is Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of
Anthropology at the University of Maryland-College Park, where he is also the
Director of the Center for Heritage Resource Studies, a program that supports
the comprehensive approach to the study of heritage. He received his Ph.D.
from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1987. Author of numerous
books and articles, including "Memory in Black and White: Race,
Commemoration, and the Post-Bellum Landscape" (2003), Dr. Shackel's work
addresses what nationally significant sites mean to the American public, and
how those heritage resources help to create and maintain concepts of
national identity. His presentation and audience discussions will explore the
ways in which civically engaged historical and archaeological research projects
can play a role in illuminating controversial issues of our country's
development, such as the impacts of social tensions concerning ethnicity,
racism, and labor.
****
African-American History and Struggles for Freedom: Conditions of Subject
and Object
Presented by Prof. Abdul Alkalimat
Date and time: June 17, 2008, 7:00 pm
Location: Kinderhook Lodge, 22168 State Highway 106, Barry, Illinois.
Dr. Abdul Alkalimat (Gerald McWorter) is Professor of African American Studies
at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and received his Ph.D. in
sociology from the University of Chicago. He is a direct descendant of Frank
McWorter. Among his numerous publications, Dr. Alkalimat was editor and
chapter author of the influential text, "Paradigms in Black Studies: Intellectual
History, Cultural Meaning and Political Ideology" (1990). His presentations will
engage the audience in discussions about the history of African American
communities and the impacts of racism in the 19th and 20th centuries from his
perspective as a scholar in Black studies and as a descendant of the founder
of New Philadelphia.
****
Interpreting Cultural Diversity and African-American Heritage in Nineteenth-
Century Missouri
Presented by Prof. Timothy Baumann
Date and time: June 24, 2008, 7:00 pm
Location: Kinderhook Lodge, 22168 State Highway 106, Barry, Illinois.
Dr. Timothy Baumann is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Missouri
Valley College. He received a M. S. in anthropology at the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1995, and a Ph. D. in anthropology 2001 from the
University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Dr. Baumann was the recipient of the
Society for Historical Archaeology's John Cotter award in 2007, in recognition
of his work in public outreach and African-American archaeology. He is a
leading expert in historical and archaeological investigations of African-
American heritage in the Midwest region. Dr. Baumann's presentation and
discussions will address his archaeological and historical research concerning
such aspects of African-American heritage, with a focus on his work at the
Arrow Rock State Historic Site and the Scott Joplin State Historic Site in
Missouri.
****
Grassroots Politics and Archaeological Engagement along the Color Line
Presented by Prof. Paul Mullins
Date and time: July 1, 2008, 7:00 pm
Location: Kinderhook Lodge, 22168 State Highway 106, Barry, Illinois.
Dr. Paul Mullins is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of
Anthropology at the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. He
received a M.A. in applied anthropology at the University of Maryland-College
Park in 1990, and his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of
Massachusetts-Amherst in 1996. He is the author of "Race and Affluence: An
Archaeology of African America and Consumer Culture" (1999), and he
received the Society for Historical Archaeology's John L. Cotter Award in 2000
in recognition of his scholarship on African-American heritage and archaeology.
His presentation will engage audience discussions concerning ways of
analyzing the impacts of racism on American communities, with a focus on his
long-term archaeological projects concerning past African-American
communities in Indianapolis, Indiana.
****
Nicodemus: Triumphs of an African-American Town in the Kansas Prairie
Presented by Prof. Flordeliz Bugarin
Date and time: July 16, 2008, 7:00 pm
Location: Illinois State Museum, 1011 East Ash Street, Springfield, Illinois.
Dr. Flordeliz Bugarin is an Assistant Professor in Anthropology at Howard
University, and received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of
Florida. Her scholarship and research focus on the intersections of African-
American history, African history, and archaeology. Dr. Bugarin is co-directing
a multi-year historical and archaeological project concerning Nicodemus,
Kansas, an African-American pioneering community on the western frontier
during the 19th century. Her presentation and audience discussions will
address the findings of a civically engaged archaeological project for exploring
the social history of this past community, the contributions of African
Americans to the shaping of the expanding frontier of the American west, and
related questions of gender, class, ethnicity, and racism.
****
Struggles for Equality in African-American History
Presented by Prof. Kamau Kemayo
Date and time: July 23, 2008, 7:00 pm
Location: Illinois State Museum, 1011 East Ash Street, Springfield, Illinois.
Dr. Kamau Kemayo is Assistant Professor and Chair of the African American
Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Springfield. He received a M.A.
in Afro-American studies from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1986,
and his Ph.D. in American studies from the St. Louis University in 1999. His
numerous publications include "Ancestral Communion in Contemporary African
American Literature" (2004) and his book entitled "Emerging Afrikan Survivals:
An Afrocentric Critical Theory" (2003). Dr. Kemayo's presentation will guide
audience discussions concerning the heritage of African-American literature
and politics and past and present struggles against the elements of racism in
American society.
****
Additional information about this speaker series and African-American
archaeology in the Midwest is available at:
http://www.anthro.uiuc.edu/faculty/cfennell/NP/2008speakerseries.html
and
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-
blacktowns_bd08jun08,0,9628.story
****
Cheers,
Chris Fennell
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