Segregation Made Them Neighbors: An Archaeology of Racialization in Boise, Idaho

235 Pages·2023·9.036 MB·English

by  William A. White III

Segregation Made Them Neighbors
Historical Archaeology
of the American West
Series Editors
Ben Ford
Lee M. Panich
Segregation Made
Them Neighbors
An Archaeology of Racialization
in Boise, Idaho
William A. White III
University of Nebraska Press
and the
Society for Historical Archaeology
© 2023 by the Society for Historical Archaeology
All rights reserved
The University of Nebraska Press is part of a land-
grant institution with campuses and programs on the
past, present, and future homelands of the Pawnee,
Ponca, Otoe- Missouria, Omaha, Dakota, Lakota, Kaw,
Cheyenne, and Arapaho Peoples, as well as those of the
relocated Ho-C hunk, Sac and Fox, and Iowa Peoples.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022013276
Set in Quadraat and Quadraat Sans.
This book is dedicated to Dorothy Buckner (1927–2 003), civil
rights activist and Black trailblazer in Boise, Idaho, and
Richard Madry, who let us dig in his grandmother’s backyard.

Contents
List of Illustrations .................................................ix
List of Tables ........................................................xi
Acknowledgments .................................................xiii
Introduction: Archaeology That Promotes Antiracism ...............1
1. Forging an Urban Place through Racism ...........................17
2. Race, Structural Racism, and Whiteness in Boise, Idaho ..........40
3. Creating a Landscape despite Racism ..............................69
4. The River Street Public Archaeology Project .......................94
5. Archaeological Evidence of Life in a Stigmatized Landscape,
1890s– 1960s .......................................................111
6. Saving the Erma Hayman House ..................................152
Conclusion: Using Archaeology to Fight Racism .................165
Appendix 1: Artifact Tables .......................................175
Appendix 2: Makers’ Marks Summary ............................177
References .........................................................181
Index .............................................................201

Illustrations
1. River Street Neighborhood, Boise, Idaho ............................6
2. St. Paul Baptist Church ............................................28
3. Evolution of buildings in project area ...............................31
4. Diagram of intersection of identity for individuals .................44
5. Front elevations at 163, 609, and 611 Ash Street ....................64
6. Warner L. Terrell Jr. seated in a child’s goat cart ...................84
7. Land ownership in River Street Public Archaeology Project area ...95
8. Collaboration continuum in archaeology ..........................99
9. The Erma Hayman House at 617 Ash Street .......................107
10. A scene from the River Street Public Archaeology Project .........108
11. Distribution of 2015 excavations ...................................117
12. Shovel probe stratigraphy along the east edge of the
project area .......................................................120
13. Archaeological evidence of coal oven clean out ....................121
14. Undecorated ironstone bowl recovered from 633 Ash Street ......130
15. Remains of a cherry pitting tool recovered from 617 Ash Street ...134
16. Wintergreen (celadon) porcelain fragments from
633 Ash Street ....................................................139
17. Marbles recovered from 617 Ash Street ...........................142
18. Remains of the first Basque fronton (feature 125) and
second fronton ...................................................147
19. Playing court at the Anduiza Fronton in Boise ....................148
20. Massive outdoor fronton in Jordan Valley, Oregon ................149
21. Overview of ghettoization in the United States ....................155
ix