Past: Building the Bootheel: African American Workers and Waterways

Join the State Historical Society of Missouri and Center for Missouri Studies fellow Heidi Dodson for a public presentation of her fellowship project. In her talk, she will explore how rivers, swamps, and ditches have shaped the history and culture of the Missouri Bootheel, examining in particular the important role African Americans played in the transformation of the region’s water landscapes.

Dodson will focus on African American community building and labor on flood control infrastructure and drainage ditches during the early twentieth century. She will illuminate this history through the lens of a notorious 1906 court case, African American Civilian Conservation Corps camps, and contemporary oral histories.