Professional accomplishments directly resulting from my research in and about Decatur, Georgia, 2011-2023. No, it’s not a game.
September 6, 2023: “Decatur Day and the History of Serial Displacement in an Atlanta Suburb.” The Metropole (Urban History Association blog).
April 24, 2023: “Our Missing Middle Housing Didn’t Just Go Missing. It Was Torn Down.” Next City.
August 6, 2022: “Heirs, History, and Land: Recovering and Conserving Black Spaces and Stories.” Featured presentation, Shelton Family Settlement at Possum Trot Family Reunion and Historical Marker Unveiling, Berry College, Rome, Georgia. (Delivered remotely.)
July 2022: Agnes Scott College is awarded a $750,000 Mellon Foundation grant to conduct research, community engagement, and develop curriculum on race and racism in Decatur, Ga. The grant application relied on my research; the institution wrote that if the grant is awarded that the college would seek to hire me as a researcher and adjunct professor. It would have been nice if Agnes Scott College had consulted with me prior to using my name and my credentials in the application. Needless to say, I did not collaborate with Agnes Scott College on its project.
January 2022: Georgia Tech History Professor Todd Michney invites me to participate in a panel on redlining, housing and race for the 2022 Atlanta Studies Symposium. My paper was accepted and the panel was scheduled to present on May 6, 2022. My participation in planning the session included providing the name for the panel, “Spatial Imaginaries, Racial Realities: Boundaries and a Changing Atlanta Metropolitan Area.” Work obligations in Pittsburgh prevented me from presenting my paper.
June 2021: The City of Decatur in collaboration with the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights developed a Juneteenth walking tour of downtown Decatur based entirely on a walking tour that I designed for the National Council on Public History’s 2020 Atlanta conference, the “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour (see below).
May 29, 2021: Members of The Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights invited me to be a speaker at the 2021 Decatur Juneteenth celebration.
May 28, 2021: The Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights invited me to be a member of its Reparations Committee.
May 5, 2021: Invited presentation of a virtual version of the “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour for Decatur High School educators and professional staff.
April 21, 2021: Invited virtual presentation, “Gentrification’s Consequences in Decatur: Displacement, Erasure, and the Environment,” to students enrolled in Agnes Scott College’s history program.
April 20, 2021: Members of the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights and the Coalition for a Diverse Decatur & Coalition for a Diverse Dekalb invited me to give an illustrated virtual presentation about asset mapping.
March 22, 2021: “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour presented virtually for a class in Agnes Scott College’s Department of History.
March 7, 2021: Invited presentation of a virtual version of the “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour for the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, Decatur, Georgia.
October 9, 2020: Invited Presentation, “Silver Spring Sundown Suburb,” for The Well Community Church in Silver Spring, Maryland.
September 23, 2020: Invited presentation of a virtual version of the “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour for the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights.
September 23, 2020: Invited presentation, “A Path to Reconciliation and Repair: Telling the Full Story on Race and History in Montgomery County,” for members of the Montgomery County, Maryland, Bar.
September 10, 2020: “A Virtual Walking Tour in Decatur, Georgia: Linking Race, History, Community,” published in History@Work (National Council on Public History).
July 27, 2020: “Decatur Displaced and Erased” presented virtually for the Goucher College Masters in Historic Preservation Program and Decatur, Ga., community members. This event was documented in my Sept. 10, 2020, History@Work Article, “A Virtual Walking Tour in Decatur, Georgia: Linking Race, History, and Community.”
March 21, 2020: “Decatur Displaced and Erased: The Black Experience in Decatur, Georgia” walking tour conducted for the National Council on Public History 2020 annual conference. The conference and walking tour shifted online after the onset of the Covid pandemic.
February 7, 2020: “Decatur Displaced and Erased” walking tour and classroom lecture, Agnes Scott College Department of History, Decatur, Ga.
2020: Brock, Julia, Elayne Washington Hunter, Robin Morris, and Shaneé Murrain. “‘Send Out a Little Light’: The Antioch A.M.E. Digital Archive.” In Digital Community Engagement: Partnering Communities with the Academy, edited by Rebecca S. Wingo, Jason A. Heppler, and Paul Schaderwald, 2020. Book chapter inspired by “Antioch’s Eyes” (see below).
October 18, 2019: “Historic Preservation and Folklore: Dismantling the Diversity Deficit” delivered at the 2019 American Folklore Society meeting, Baltimore, Maryland.
October 2019: Published: “The Decatur Plan: Folklore, Historic Preservation, and the Black Experience in Gentrifying Spaces.” The Journal of American Folklore 132, no. 526 (2019): 431–51.
August 14, 2019: Bethesda Magazine reports that the Montgomery County, Md., school system completed an audit of school names in the wake of the decision to rename E. Brooke Lee Middle School (see below).
April 13, 2019: Invited lecture, “Silver Spring: A Sundown Suburb in the Capital’s Gateway,” Gwendolyn E. Coffield Community Center, Silver Spring, Md.
April 5, 2019: Invited panelist, “A Conversation on Atlanta, Georgia,” sponsored by the Black Geographies Specialty Group, American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.
April 2, 2019: Invited lecture, “Sundown Suburbs,” University of Maryland African American Studies Program.
March 13, 2019: “Competing Histories or Hidden Transcripts? The Sources We Use,” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog).
February 14, 2019: Montgomery County newspapers report on request by County Council President to change the name of E. Brooke Lee Middle School. My March 2017 Washington Post article, “There’s More to Fighting Racism than Getting Rid of a Confederate Statue,” is cited as the impetus. Umaña, José. “Navarro Requests Name Change for Middle School,” The Montgomery County Sentinel.
2018: “Producing and Protesting Invisibility in Silver Spring, Maryland.” In Demand the Impossible: Essays in History as Activism, edited by Nathan Wuertenberg and William Horne, 89–111. Washington, D.C.: Westphalia Press, 2018.
September 14, 2017: “Why Diversity Initiatives Rarely Make Gentrifying Neighborhoods More Equitable.” Next City (blog), September 14, 2017.
March 5, 2017: “There’s More to Fighting Racism than Getting Rid of a Confederate Statue.” The Washington Post, March 5, 2017.
December 14, 2016. Ritter, Ellie. “Tearing Down Decatur’s History: As Luxurious Houses Replace Small Homes, Gentrification Forces Minorities Out.” Carpe Diem (Decatur High School Student Magazine), December 14, 2016. I was interviewed for the article and I provided the illustrations.
July 11, 2016: Zainaldin, Jamil. “Digital History in the Making with Antioch A.M.E. History Project.” Saporta Report (blog), July 11, 2016.
April 14, 2016: “(Re)-Imagining Decatur: Gentrification, Race, and History in a Southern Suburb,” Delta Symposium, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, Arkansas.
February 18, 2016: “Tearing Down Oakhurst: An Oral History of Gentrification.” Documentary screening and discussion of gentrification, The Potter’s House, Washington, D.C.
2016: David Rotenstein Collection, Antioch A.M.E. Digital Archive.
2016: “Historic Preservation Shines a Light on a Dark Past.” In Preserving Places: Reflections on the National Historic Preservation Act at Fifty from The Public Historian, edited by Tamara Gaskell, 18–19. National Council on Public History, 2016.
October 27, 2015: “I Had to Move After Exposing the Seamy History of the City of Decatur, Georgia.” History News Network (blog).
July 28, 2015: “Historic Preservation Shines a Light on a Dark Past.” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog), July 28, 2015.
March 29, 2015: “Doing Public History: This Is What Success Can Look Like,” History News Network (blog).
March 20, 2015: “Fragile History in a Gentrifying Neighborhood.” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog).
February 22, 2015: “When a City Turns White, What Happens to Its Black History?” History News Network (blog).
October 18, 2014: “Tearing Down Oakhurst: An Oral History of Gentrification.” Documentary screening and discussion of gentrification, Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, Decatur, Ga.
September 2014: “Antioch’s Eyes,” The Anchor (newsletter of Antioch A.M.E. Church), pp. 1-2, Stone Mountain, Ga. Article reprinted from a blog post, “Antioch’s Eyes,” published on my site January 29, 2014.
April 14, 2014: “From Urban Homesteading to Mazeway Disintegration: Gentrification in Decatur,1975-2014.” Paper presented at the Second Annual Atlanta Studies Symposium.
April 11, 2014: “A Lesson in Racial Profiling and Historical Relevance,” Decatur-Avondale Estates Patch (reprinted from History@Work).
March 11, 2014: “Tearing Down Oakhurst: An Oral History of Gentrification.” Documentary screening and discussion of gentrification, Charis Books and More, Atlanta, Ga.
April 10, 2014: “A lesson in racial profiling and historical relevance,” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog).
July 3, 2013: “Clinging to Jim Crow Through Historic Preservation.” Like the Dew (blog), July 3, 2013. Site defunct; no archive copy; Also posted on my blog, July 8, 2013 as “Separate and Unequal: Preserving Jim Crow.”
September 21, 2012: “Preservation conversations: When history at work is history at home (Part II),” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog).
September 14, 2012: “Preservation conversations: When history at work is history at home (Part I),” History@Work | National Council on Public History (blog).
May 2012: “Decatur’s African American Historic Landscape.” Reflections (Ga. State Historic Preservation Office) 10, no. 3 (May 2012): 5–7.
2012: “Reviving South Decatur Through Urban Homesteading.” Times of DeKalb, DeKalb History Center newsletter, 6, no. 2 (2012): 1, 4–5.
2011: “Decatur’s Oakhurst: A Subdivision and A Castle,” Times of DeKalb, DeKalb History Center newsletter, 5, no. 4 (2012): 2-3.
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If I were mounting an exhibition to tell the story about Montgomery County, Maryland, in the 1950s, there would be lots of material from which to choose: the Cold War, suburbanization, and civil rights would certainly be in the mix. But how would I choose to tell the story about the Black experience in Montgomery County during that eventful decade?