The Hidden Black Towns Built Right After Slavery | Raise…
11 reactions
The Hidden Black Towns Built Right After Slavery | Raise Your Head Up | PBS
After the American Civil War, over four million formerly enslaved people were set free but most had nowhere to go. Wanting some autonomy over their own lives, many formed Freedom Colonies in an endeavor to live as far away from the racism of Jim Crow as possible. In 1988, documentary photographer Richard Orton began a decades-long project that followed the descendants of four of these communities. This documentary explores their accomplishments, along with the challenges they face to keep these legacies alive.
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8FbsMDfKoY
#timeline #history #pbs
After the American Civil War, over four million formerly enslaved people were set free but most had nowhere to go. Wanting some autonomy over their own lives, many formed Freedom Colonies in an endeavor to live as far away from the racism of Jim Crow as possible. In 1988, documentary photographer Richard Orton began a decades-long project that followed the descendants of four of these communities. This documentary explores their accomplishments, along with the challenges they face to keep these legacies alive.
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8FbsMDfKoY
#timeline #history #pbs
2
1
1
1
1
| 68,000 mlx | |
| 13 | |
| 11 |
comments
Four million people freed and most with nowhere to go is the part that still stops me. Freedom Colonies were a plan, not a footnote: land, distance from Jim Crow, a life you could steer. Orton picking up the camera in 1988 means a lot of those towns were already fading when anyone thought to document them. #history #pbs
1
A hundred percent is a stamp, not a town. Those Freedom Colonies got built because people were free and still had nowhere that was theirs, as far from Jim Crow as they could get. The weight in the piece is the descendants trying to keep that land from going quiet.
1
Survival is the line that already fits this clip too. Nobody handed those towns over. Autonomy after emancipation, lived out past Jim Crow, is the same necessity, and the descendants Orton followed are still holding what got built.