Curious to know what "Searching for Black Ancestors in the American West" is all about? You aren’t alone. African diaspora archeologist and UH professor Alicia Odewale, Ph.D., will reveal her findings behind this intriguing title from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 18, in UHD’s TDECU Tour Room in the Welcome Center as part of the 2025 President’s Lecture Series.
“The search for Black ancestors requires unearthing buried histories, reclaiming what Toni Morrison described as the ‘disremembered past,’ and seeing with new eyes the complex landscapes of Black heritage that have been erased from the map,” writes Dr. Odewale.
Born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Dr. Odewale is the great grandniece of Robert Ware, who attended Dunbar Grade School in Greenwood and survived the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. She is also a graduate of Booker T. Washington High School, a historically Black high school created during Oklahoma’s Jim Crow era and one of the few structures that survived the attack on Greenwood in 1921.
She earned her college degrees at Westminster College and The University of Tulsa (UT), and in 2016 made history as the first Black person to receive a doctorate in anthropology at The University of Tulsa. Dr. Odewale is also the first Black faculty member to join The University of Tulsa’s department of anthropology. She joined the University of Houston faculty in 2024 and continued her groundbreaking work, using archaeology to uncover untold stories, reshape historical narratives, and inspire future generations.
Some notable research projects of hers include “Mapping Historical Trauma in Tulsa” (1921–2021), in which she used archaeology to explore community resilience after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, including a GIS website to visualize Greenwood before and after the massacre.
For the President's Lecture Series, she invites participants on a journey that stretches beyond traditional genealogical methods to dive into the world of vibrant Black towns, Black cowboys, and outlaws in the West. She’ll discuss the Black towns and freedom colonies that have been erased, lost, burned down, abandoned, or built over and forgotten.
In part, her lecture is based on her latest research, The Black Heritage Tree Project, sponsored by National Geographic Society, and her two new courses at the University of Houston—Before Cowboy Carter: Black Towns, Black Freedom and Finding Black Ancestors. Dr. Odewale also draws on her own experiences as an archaeologist and her personal search for her ancestors to reflect on the power of archaeology, storytelling, and the collective remembrance in finding ancestral connections in the West.
How do we find our ancestors, and how do we engage with their stories in the face of erasure and invisibility? How do we piece together and protect the histories left behind in the land, in burial sites, and in archival silences? Join us on Feb. 18 as we explore these topics together!