Museum After Dark: Tiny Boxes and Vast Legacies by Dr. Kalenda Eaton

On Friday, November 14, at 6 p.m., the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center is pleased to host a talk with Dr. Kalenda Eaton of the University of Oklahoma. Eaton will present “Tiny Boxes and Vast Legacies: Mapping the African American Homesteading Story in Oklahoma Territory.”

The talk will be held at the Village Church in the Humphrey Heritage Village. The cost of attending the presentation will be the regular price of admission.

Under the Homestead Act of 1862, the federal government offered eligible settlers 160 acres of land. Oklahoma holds a unique position in this history as the Homestead Act does not significantly impact the territory until nearly thirty years later. Immediately, the political changes in borders and land allotments ushered in demographic changes across the region. Using a new data map produced from the Oklahoma Black Homesteader Project, this presentation will explore the communities of African American homesteaders in Oklahoma territory during the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Specific examples from Garfield County will be highlighted.

Dr. Kalenda Eaton is a professor in the Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies at The University of Oklahoma. She is a humanities scholar whose research focuses on African American Western regional studies; intersections of Black literary studies and cultural history; and women’s studies.