AHA Session 32
Thursday, January 7, 2027: 3:30 PM-5:00 PM
Galerie 5 (New Orleans Marriott, 2nd Floor)
Chair:
Hannah Scruggs, Harvard University
Panel:
Dean Michel, Florida State University
Kelsey Moore, Georgetown University
Allison Puglisi, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Kelsey Moore, Georgetown University
Allison Puglisi, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Session Abstract
Throughout the twentieth century, United States sanctioned flooding has been disastrous for several Indigenous and Black communities. How have they coped with and recovered from floods? What did it mean for water to overtake their land, whether ancestral, the sites of homes, or places of burial? This roundtable will discuss the experiences of different Black and Indigenous communities who faced the flooding of their homes and sacred spaces by the U.S. government during the twentieth century. Panelists will compare and contrast the flooding of African American cemeteries during the Santee-Cooper Dam project in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, the meaning of the Parker Dam and the consequent flooding of the sacred lands of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, and the ways Black housing activists in New Orleans organized around environmental issues that threatened their homes and lives. Their conversation will look at how Black and Indigenous communities have survived environmental destruction to draw out lessons for a future that promises even more disasters driven by climate change.
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