Sustaining Visibility? The Quandary of St. Paul and Archaeology in the Long Run

Abstract

In summer 2002, archaeologists from the University of Texas at Austin excavated a shotgun house site adjacent to the historic St. Paul United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas, once part of a flourishing North Dallas freedmen’s community. Church members were connected to this site which once belonged to the Cole family, whose head was a former church trustee. That fall, I came to the church as a response to the church community’s desire to learn more about their historical connection to the former freedmen’s community, and to share their story with the Dallas community through the recovered artefacts. This article is a self-reflexive account of my journey. It explores lessons learned about how archaeological research can better accommodate community partners, in the long run. This leads to what I consider a more thorough examination of historic preservation, through community engagement, with archaeologists as public servants.