The St. John's Community Project | National Council on Public History

Project Details

The St. John's Community Project (SJCP) explores the history of African Americans in Denton County through the lens of a black community centered on the St. John’s church, school, and cemetery. In the aftermath of emancipation, a group of black Alabamians migrated to North Texas and established a rural freedmen’s community near Pilot Point in Denton County during the 1870s. This community maintained the St. John’s church, school, and cemetery during the years from Reconstruction through the Great Depression. Built by a team of undergraduate and graduate students at the University of North Texas, the SJCP is an online museum that tells the story of the St. John's community and offers new windows into the lives of African Americans in North Texas between the 1870s and 1930s.

Subjects or Themes

African American; Texas, North; History, Local

Project Language(s)

English

Time Period

Geographic Location

Project Categories

Content Type

Digital images, documents, oral history, mapping

Target Audience(s)

Creators

Todd Moye, Andrew Torget, and students of HIST 4261/5100 at the University of North Texas

Year(s)

2018

Host Institution / Affiliation / Project Location

University of North Texas

Software Employed

Labor and Support

A team of undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in HIST 4261/HIST 5100, African Americans in North Texas: A Public History Research Seminar, at the University of North Texas researched and constructed this online museum during the Spring 2018 semester under the supervision of Professors Andrew J. Torget and Todd Moye and teaching assistant Kylie Woodlock. Working in teams, the students researched the history of St. John's Baptist Church and St. John's Cemetery , the people who are buried there, and the social, religious, geographic, and economic networks to which they were connected. They documented the historical memory of the cemetery and church community and placed the St. John's community in the contexts of local and statewide history in the form of an online museum and digital archive.