a fugitive's map of the black south

the usual utterance of “the south” conjures up an image of an american terra nullius, the only region in the u.s. devoid of civilized folk, overrun with backwards, back-woods white supremacists. “the south,” etched out and iconized by the traditional geographic demarcation known as the mason dixon line, is cemented in our cultural memories as a place that privileges a “white, patriarchal, Eurocentric, heterosexual, classed vantage point” [1]. because of this vantage point, the BLACK SOUTH becomes invisibilized yet readily knowable for those looking to inflict geographic violence on the black folks that inhabit the region.

this is an attempt to privilege sensations and geographic ways of knowing of black southerners (“poetics of landscape”) to offer one of many fugitive maps of the black south [2].

this map is not meant to be readily legible in our present cartograghic assumptions and understandings. it is not meant to be fixed or in stasis. rather, this map of the black south deals with the hauntings of black folks' placemaking.

a fugitive asks:

how does a fugitive map the black south?

what does it mean to escape to/within a region that many seek to escape from/forget about/misremember?

how does/can the black south supercede the enclosure of u.s. empire?

where is the black south beyond geographic descriptions given to us?

where does the black south take us?

for the fugitive, the black south is ever-changing, expanding and contracting like a lung full of life, beyond the rigidities of cartographic boundaries. using images found in archives + beyond, this rendering of a fugitive map captures four sensations that guide maroons to/throughout/in the black south: [absconding] [stealing] [feeling] [*whatever]

click an action above to journey to a node in the map of the black south

notes

[1] Katherine McKittrick, Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle, xiii

[2] Mckittick, Demonic Grounds, xxi

thefolk, CREATED BY KELSEY MOORE, IS AN ONLINE DIGITAL CURATORIAL PROJECT CENTERING SOUTHERN AFRICAN AMERICAN FOLK LIFE BOTH PAST AND PRESENT. FOLLOW THEFOLK ON INSTAGRAM.

Electric Blog

this is an attempt to privilege sensations and geographic ways of knowing of black southerners (“poetics of landscape”) to offer one of many fugitive maps of the black south [2].

this map is not meant to be readily legible in our present cartograghic assumptions and understandings. it is not meant to be fixed or in stasis. rather, this map of the black south deals with the hauntings of black folks' placemaking.

a fugitive asks:

how does a fugitive map the black south?

what does it mean to escape to/within a region that many seek to escape from/forget about/misremember?

how does/can the black south supercede the enclosure of u.s. empire?

where is the black south beyond geographic descriptions given to us?

where does the black south take us?

click an action above to journey to a node in the map of the black south

notes

[1] Katherine McKittrick, Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle, xiii

[2] Mckittick, Demonic Grounds, xxi

thefolk, CREATED BY KELSEY MOORE, IS AN ONLINE DIGITAL CURATORIAL PROJECT CENTERING SOUTHERN AFRICAN AMERICAN FOLK LIFE BOTH PAST AND PRESENT. FOLLOW THEFOLK ON INSTAGRAM.