by Christina Stock

Friday, February 27, 2021

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“An online seminar hosted by the New Mexico Humanities Council (NMHC) on the historical township Blackdom on Feb. 23 attracted 87 participants. The audience was able to learn about the latest research and insights into the cultural and historical significance of the township of Blackdom, founded in 1903, 18 miles south of Roswell and 8 miles west of Dexter. By the mid-1920s, most residents had left, turning Blackdom into a ghost town."

Bethany Tabor, NMHC program officer, served as the moderator. She introduced the speakers, which included Janice Dunnahoo of the Historical Society for Southeast New Mexico (HSSNM) Archives in Roswell. Dunnahoo is a contributing author for the West Texas Historical Association, Wild West Journal, True West Magazine, Texas-New Mexico Border Archives Journal, and a weekly contributor to the Roswell Daily Record.”

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Clarence Fielder especially enjoyed sharing the early history of the African-American community of Las Cruces, which centered around his own experiences as well as those of his parents and grandparents. Mr. Fielder was also instrumental in restoring the Phillips Chapel CME Church, founded by his grandparents Ollie and Daniel Hibler, which served as a school during segregation and was named to the National Register of Historic Places as the oldest existing African-American church in New Mexico.

The 12-minute story profiles Mr. Clarence Fielder, a beloved and dedicated teacher who grew up in Las Cruces and taught for many years in the public schools and in the Department of History at NMSU.

06:48 Executive Producer, Nan Rubin interviews Dr. Timothy E. Nelson who was one of Mr. Fielder’s students at New Mexico State University.

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University of Northern Iowa Department of History alumnus, Dr. Timothy E. Nelson the Historian, is passionate about the significance of the Afro-Frontier in American history, and he uncovers the forgotten history of Blackdom, New Mexico.

Dr. Nelson merges Blackdom’s history with New Western History, Borderland Studies, Diasporic Studies, and Blacks in the West, placing Afro-Frontierists at the center of their histories, rather than as footnotes of other people’s histories. Through his dissertation as well as his current outreach, Dr. Nelson’s goal is uncovering and advocating for untold stories. He unequivocally raises the voices of Afro-Frontierists.

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Recently, the Compton Cowboys captivated America when they joined Black Lives Matter protests by horseback. Like an echo across the United States, more stories surfaced of Black Cowboys joining protests. The New York Times headline read, "Evoking History, Black cowboys take the Streets." We will explore the Afro-Frontier to identify the history evoked.

KAYLA LAWRENCE
October 19, 2020

University of Northern Iowa's History Club Invites Alum Dr. Nelson to present his research of the Afro-Frontier in American history

Planting Seeds of Freedom in the Pecos Valley of New Mexico: How Blackdom Grew Its Roots through Dry-Farming

Blackdom in the Borderlands: Significance of the Afro-Frontier (1903-1929)

El Palacio Magazine | March 2021 | Introduction:

In the early 1900s, the North American continental interior hosted two different centuries-long global colonization schemes. The Pecos Valley region’s economic surge underwent the largest infrastructure projects in the world at the time and brought exploitation of people and land. African descendants under the conditions of American Blackness (Black people) sought opportunity in the colonization collision at Mexico’s northern frontier and the United States’ western frontier. Through the homestead process in the southeastern section of the New Mexico Territory, Black people became colonizers. After the discovery of oil in New Mexico, they fully participated in the bonanza and received royalties that extended through the post-World War II era. In this essay, we explore an intersection of African descendants in diaspora, who quarantined themselves to achieve the goals of their ancestral strivings.

Maya L. Allen: With a background in systematics of algae as an undergraduate researcher, Ms. Allen has since gone on to work in marine, fresh-water and terrestrial systems. Ms. Allen also was a participant in the National Science Foundation’s Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections Project as an undergraduate, where she contributed to this important effort to make academic collections more accessible to the global research community and the public. She conducted her MS thesis work on resolving the phylogeny of Glossopetalon, a small genus of flowering shrubs native to SW North America using restriction site associated DNA sequencing (RAD-seq). Ms. Allen has transitioned to exploring research questions focused on the phenotypic plasticity’s role in evolution and patterns of plasticity throughout species ranges. As a graduate student at UNM she is a mentor to students from underrepresented groups through the Project for New Mexico Graduate Students of Color program and as a Research Coaching Fellow.