Black Towns, Black Futures
The Enduring Allure of a Black Place in the American West
By Karla Slocum
192 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 13 halftones, 1 map, 1 table
-
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-5397-6
Published: November 2019 -
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-5396-9
Published: November 2019 -
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4696-5398-3
Published: September 2019
Buy this Book
- Paperback $29.95
- Hardcover $99.00
- E-Book $21.99
For Professors:
Free E-Exam Copies
Awards & distinctions
Finalist, 2020 Oklahoma Book Awards (Non-Fiction)
About the Author
Karla Slocum is Thomas Willis Lambeth Chair of Public Policy and professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
For more information about Karla Slocum, visit
the
Author
Page.
Reviews
"Incorporating interviews, reflections on participation in local events, personal narratives, and archival research across multiple towns, the work demonstrates that Black towns remain a source of pride in success, innovation, and community. . . . Recommended."--CHOICE Reviews
"A compelling and fascinating exploration of how space, place, and race converge in rural America."--Journal of Southern History
"An impressive effort to theorize what Slocum calls the 'appeal' of Black towns in the United States, not historically, but in contemporary social life. . . . Black Towns, Black Futures is necessary now, for the glimpse it provides into the vision and attraction of Black spaces and Black places, at a time when safety and survival seem increasingly precarious."--Anthropological Quarterly
"In a succinctly written text, Karla Slocum explores the Black towns that thrived in Oklahoma during the Jim Crow years. Her analysis however, does not stop there. Utilizing interviews and observations, Slocum explores the enduring attraction to these communities both in memory and in person. In doing so, she underscores the history of these towns as examples of African American self-determination, autonomy, and freedom in rural Oklahoma."--Western Historical Quarterly
“Slocum gives us a sense of the importance of Black towns, which then becomes an allegory for the importance of one’s own history, which then becomes a commentary on what makes all of us human. Black Towns, Black Futures is innovative and methodologically rigorous, while also accessible and highly original. An outstanding book.” —Laurence Ralph, Princeton University
“Slocum has written a careful, convincing, and insightful argument about how and why it makes sense to think seriously about the state of—and lure of—Black towns in contemporary American society. A wonderful example of what ethnography can do when placed in proper historical context and steeped in the cultural politics of local communities.” —John L. Jackson Jr., University of Pennsylvania