Join the Department of History to attend the lecture of one of our distinguished alumni. The American Southwest has long been understudied by scholars of the African diaspora. However, the racial isolation associated with this area makes the resistance and resilience of local black communities even more valuable to scholarship on the diaspora. In this area, black residents blur the distinction between assimilation and maroonage through socio-spatial integration with non-black communities. In this sense, racial integration is a survival strategy—with unique advantages and limitations—that opens opportunities to explore marginalized permutations of the contemporary diasporic experience; and more importantly, provides insight into strategies utilized to survive racial isolation in the United States. Dr. Anthony Pratcher II is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Race and Ethnicity at Brown University. He has a joint appointment at the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America and the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. He earned his Ph.D. from the History Department at the University of Pennsylvania in 2017 and was awarded a B.A. in History from Howard University in 2010. He teaches on topics within American History and has been published by Southern California Quarterly and Technology and Culture.