Creative Extraction: Black Towns in White Space

What is the “anomalous” case of Black-founded towns? Professors Purifoy and Seamster argue for the importance of understanding the situations of these so-called “Black-founded towns” because of their relative absence from discourse on Black place, compared more discussed neighborhoods and cities. By tracking their unique struggles for self-determined development, their externally ascribed narratives of absent or dysfunctional governance, frequently invoked to explain their lack of access to basic infrastructure. Purifoy and Seamster focus on the relationship of The Woodlands to Tamina to trace out this power dynamic. 

Purifoy and Seamster propose illuminating some of these so-called anomalies through Charles Mills’ “racial contract,” which we argue structures space at a deeper level than traditional legal arrangements and allows us to look relationally at Black towns in “white space.” We also rely on Cedric Robinson’s “racial capitalism” to demonstrate how white space develops through extraction of value from places racialized as nonwhite. Through the case of Tamina, Texas, we argue that Black towns specifically, and Black places more generally, experience racially predatory governance and resource extraction, often by nearby white places, under the guise of following mundane rules of legal jurisdiction, standard economic planning, and development. To illustrate this, we focus on three overlapping mechanisms of “creative extraction” that reinforce white spatial, political, and economic power at the expense of Black places: theft, erosion, and exclusion. These mechanisms are tied to the environmental harms inflicted on Black towns, as some of the existential threats they face. 

Dr. Danielle Purifoy is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They completed a Ph.D in Environmental Politics and African American Studies at Duke University. They earned a B.A. in English and Political Science from Vassar College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.  Their current research traces the roots of contemporary environmental conditions in the U.S. South, specifically in Black towns dating back to the post-Bellum era. They have also written about the legal dimensions of environmental justice and equity in food systems. 

They are the former Race and Place Editor editor at Scalawag, a magazine devoted to Southern politics and culture, and the former Board Chair of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network. They also serve on the Board of Directors of Inside Climate News.  

Dr. Louise Seamster is a sociologist whose research examines contemporary mechanisms for the reproduction of racial and economic inequality. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology and the program of African American Studies at the University of Iowa. She is also a Research Fellow in the Social and Education Policy Research Program at the University of Iowa’s Public Policy Center, and a Nonresident Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution.   

Dr. Seamster's research centers on politics and urban development, emergency financial management, debt, and the myth of racial progress. Her first book, The Flint Water Coup: Debt at the End of Democracy (under contract with Columbia University Press), investigates the financial and political causes of the Flint Water Crisis. In parallel, her Flint Email Lab of graduate and undergraduate students is creating a website archive of public government email communications relating to the crisis. Another line of research examines racial disparities in debt. Her work on "predatory inclusion" in student debt has led to extensive policy work, including research informing Senator Elizabeth Warren's student debt forgiveness plan. Her many media appearances include the New York Times’ Ezra Klein Show, WNYC’s The Takeaway, Bloomberg News, and other national outlets.