Forms of History and Community Forms: Race, Place, and Historical Narratives in the New South - Scot French

Beyond Zora’s Eatonville: Black Labor, White Capital, and the Neo-Abolitionist Origins of Central Florida’s Model Townships
Scot French, University of Central Florida

This panel investigates forms of history that emerge in public space and in historical narratives that shape—and are shaped by—the spaces they inhabit. Scot French shows how, in Eatonville, a historically black central Florida community incorporated in 1887, town promoters have consistently invoked exceptionalist myths that obscured the more complex histories of the town and its deep connections to surrounding communities.

Recorded in April 2018 at the OAH Annual Meeting held in Sacremento, California as part of the Mellon-funded Amplified Initiative.