Digital Commons Network^™

2017 Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation, Otterbein University

MLK Convocations

Otterbein University honors the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. each year at an annual Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation which features a keynote speaker. This year's speakers included several speeches & performances by Otterbein Students.

Racial Injustice In Houston, Texas: The Mexican American Mobilization Against The Police Killing Of Joe Campos Torres, Melanie Rodriguez Rodriguez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the Houston Police Departmentâ??s (the HPD) relations with the ethnic-Mexican community across four decades to consider how the police killing of Joe Campos Torres sparked a wave of protest that ensured that cityâ??s long history of police brutality against ethnic Mexicans and other minorities (especially African Americans) came to the forefront in Texas, if not the nation in general. The HPD was a mechanisms of the cityâ??s status quo that reinforced the racial dominance of white Houstonians. From 1940 to 1970, the HPD found it necessary to implement effective police models to control wayward minorities and uphold …

Negotiating The Delta: Dr. T.R.M. Howard In Mound Bayou, Mississippi, William Jackson Southerland

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the racially segregationist practices and the integrationist, inclusionist formation of African American leader Dr. T.R.M. Howard during his tenure as a surgeon and entrepreneur in the all-black Mississippi Delta community of Mound Bayou, 1942-1956. The paper analytically investigates the careful racial negotiations that were required of Howard as he advanced a separatist but egalitarian economic and social plan for Delta blacks. This separatist plan, it is argued, is grounded in the racial pragmatism of the Seventh-day Adventist church which provided a bibliocentric, Tuskegee-inspired education to Howard from youth through medical school and beyond. Howard’s adherence to Adventist …

“If There Are Men Who Are Afraid To Die, There Are Women Who Are Not”: African American Women's Civil Rights Leadership In Boston, 1920-1975., Julie De Chantal

Doctoral Dissertations

Since the 1980s, narratives surrounding the Boston Busing Crisis focus on South Boston white working-class’s reaction to Judge Arthur W. Garrity's forced desegregation order of 1974. Yet, by analyzing the crises from such narrow perspective, the narratives leave out half of the story. This dissertation challenges these narratives by situating the busing crisis as the culmination of more than half a century of grassroots activism led by Black working-class mothers. By taking action at the neighborhood and the city levels, these mothers succeeded where the National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People and the Urban League had failed. …

The Turning Point Of Who Shall Be Master: Killer Of Sheep, Naming, Gender, And The Gaze Of African American Women, Sean Davis Watkins

Master of Arts in American Studies Capstones

Charles Burnett’s 1978 award-winning film Killer of Sheep directly responded to the then-popular Blaxploitation genre, holding a mirror up to post-Watts, 1970s America, while exposing and exploring gender and race issues. Moreover, intentionally or not, Burnett, with this film, effectively demonstrated the lack of recognition that Black women faced in domestic, activist, and employment spheres; simultaneously, Burnett conspicuously reified the relegation of women into that silent, domestic sphere while challenging stereotypes of Black men, elevating them and establishing them as humans, capable of hubris, humanity, and vulnerability. This neo-realistic film masterfully rebirthed the African American male identity; unfortunately, though, neglected …

“The Ground You Walk On Belongs To My People": Lakota Community Building, Activism, And Red Power In Western Nebraska, 1917-2000, David Christensen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Framed by histories of Lakotas in the twentieth century, American Indian Activism, and the “long civil rights movement,” this dissertation seeks to provide new perspectives on the American Indian civil rights movement. Although the United States government removed Lakotas from western Nebraska in the late nineteenth century, some returned to a portion of their homeland, settling and working in the border town of Gordon and the region’s two largest towns, Alliance and Scottsbluff, in the twentieth century. Between 1917 and 2000, Lakotas living in off reservation communities in western Nebraska created a grassroots reform movement, whose goals differed from the …

Black Heritage Stamp Series: Richard Allen, United States Postal Service. Stamp Division

Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Stamp Collection

Informational pages for Richard Allen Commemorative stamp – Black Heritage Series, includes images of the stamps, information about the physical stamps and biographical information for Richard Allen. First issued February 2, 2016, 39th in a series.

2016 Mlk Convocation, Sarah L. Hickey

MLK Convocations

This is the program for the annual MLK Convocation at Otterbein University.

To "Plant Our Trees On American Soil, And Repose Beneath Their Shade": Africa, Colonization, And The Evolution Of A Black Identity Narrative In The United States, 1808-1861, Edward Jason Vickers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work explores the role that ideas about Africa played in the development of a specifically American identity among free blacks in the United States, from the early nineteenth century to the Civil War. Previous studies of the writings of free blacks in the Revolutionary period, and of the American Colonization Society (ACS), which was devoted to removing them back to an African homeland, have suggested that black discussions of Africa virtually disappeared after 1816, when the colonization movement began. However, as this work illustrates, the letters, books, newspapers, and organizational records produced by free blacks in the antebellum era …

The "Unfinished Work:" The Civil War Centennial And The Civil Rights Movement, Megan A. Sutter

Student Publications

The Civil War Centennial celebrations fell short of a great opportunity in which Americans could reflect on the legacy of the Civil War through the racial crisis erupting in their nation. Different groups exploited the Centennial for their own purposes, but only the African Americans and civil rights activists tried to emphasize the importance of emancipation and slavery to the memory of the war. Southerners asserted states’ rights in resistance to what they saw as a black rebellion in their area. Northerners reflected back on the theme of reconciliation, prevalent in the seventy-fifth anniversary of the war. Unfortunately, those who …

Smith, Candace, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Candace Smith was born and raised in the Bronx. From what she recalls her family lived on the top story of a two family home in the Tremont neighborhood until moving to the Patterson Houses in 1957 when she was around age 8. The home in Tremont was in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood and she does not recall there being any other black families in the neighborhood. On the other hand, when they moved to the Patterson Houses, she does not recall any white families in the neighborhood there. Both of her parents had also grown up in the Bronx, …

Lancastrians Marched With Dr. King In Selma, Michael J. Birkner

History Faculty Publications

Fifty years after he addressed a crowd in Lancaster’s Penn Square about “the idea that all men are one,” Wayne Glick remembers that moment as if it happened yesterday. Glick’s speech, inviting Lancastrians to participate in the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, on behalf of African-American voting rights, is a footnote to Lancaster County history. But the march itself, featured in the popular film “Selma,” helped to change America. [excerpt]

Link Racial Past To The Present, Jill Ogline Titus

Civil War Institute Faculty Publications

Americans have been putting a great deal of energy into commemorating the 50th anniversary of some of the key moments of the civil rights movement. This burst of memorialization has inspired one new museum in Atlanta and the redesign of another in Memphis. The Smithsonian and Library of Congress are launching a new oral-history initiative, and films like Selma bring the movement to life for those who rarely read a history book or visit a museum.

This year brings more anniversaries: the Selma-to-Montgomery March, the passage of the Voting Rights Act, and the Watts rebellion. And the commemorative stakes are …

Muckraking And C.O.B.Y (Cry Of Black Youth): Uncovering A History Of Organizing In Belle Glade, Raymond A. Hamilton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines a local activist group in the rural town of Belle Glade, Florida during the late 1960s and early 1970s. This research falls in line with many New Black Power studies. These New Black Power studies challenge existing notions of the Black Power and Civil Rights eras and their relationship to one another. It challenges the time frames, geography and ideology of both of the eras. This case study of a the group in Belle Glade is not the first to examine the similarities of the Black Power and Civil Rights eras, where many groups who affiliated with …

No Prejudice Here: Racism, Resistance, And The Struggle For Equality In Denver, 1947-1994, Summer Marie Cherland

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study chronicles a story of civil rights that has been left untold until now. Recent scholarship contributing to the history of the "long civil rights movement" has reframed our understanding of civil rights beyond the years of the late 1950s and early 1960s. In addition, it has also demonstrated that civil rights activity occurred in regions other than the South. However, most work on the long civil rights movement demonstrates that activism among blacks began much earlier than the Brown v. Board Supreme Court case and instead, was a part of a longer freedom struggle that, in many ways, …

I'Ve Seen The Promised Land: A Letter To Amelia Boynton Robinson, Mauricio E. Novoa

SURGE

You asked if I had any thoughts or comments at the end of our visit, and I stood and said nothing. I opened my mouth, but instead of giving you words my throat was sealed by a dam of speechlessness while my eyes wept out all the emotions and heartache that I wanted to share with you. The others in my group were able to express their admiration, so I wanted to do the same. [excerpt]

Black Power In River City: African American Community Activism In Louisville, Kentucky, 1967-1970, Zack G. Hardin

Theses and Dissertations--History

The impact of Black Power rhetoric and ideology in Louisville, Kentucky in 1967-1970 is explored. The role of Black Power in shaping the discourse of Louisville’s black counter-public and civil rights counter-public is analyzed in the context of the 1967 open housing demonstrations, the May, 1968 riot, and the trial of the ‘Black Six’. Black Power played a vital role in community organizing and in displays of black national and cultural pride. It actively challenged the city’s mystique of Southern white paternalism embraced by the mayoral administration of Kenneth Schmied. Despite that administrations allegations, Black power rhetoric in the West …

African American All Class Reunion, Adrienne Riley

Black Activism and Education

A Historical Reflection of the University of San Francisco's African American Community and Experience from the African American All Class Reunion, held Sunday, October 20th, 2013.

American Commemorative Panels: Ray Charles, United States Postal Service. Stamp Division

Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Stamp Collection

Informational pages for Ray Charles Commemorative Stamp – American Commemorative Panels, includes images of the stamps, information about the physical stamp and biographical information for Ray Charles. First issued September 23, 2013.

Black Heritage Stamp Series: Althea Gibson, United States Postal Service. Stamp Division

Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Stamp Collection

Informational pages for Althea Gibson Commemorative stamp – Black Heritage Series, includes images of the stamps, information about the physical stamps and biographical information for Althea Gibson. First issued August 23, 2013, 36th in a series.

American Commemorative Panels: The 1963 March On Washington, United States Postal Service. Stamp Division

Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Stamp Collection

Informational pages for The 1963 March on Washington Commemorative Stamp – American Commemorative Panels, includes images of the stamps, information about the physical stamp and information on The 1963 March on Washington. First issued August 23, 2013.

Sam Gen Ms 01 Jean Byers Sampson Papers Finding Aid, John D. Knowlton, Susannah Clark

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

Jean Byers Sampson was a 1944 graduate of Smith College. Early in her post-Smith career, she conducted and wrote the 1947, “A Study of the Negro in Military Service,” which contributed to President Harry Truman’s decision to desegregate the armed forces. Sampson moved to Maine in the early 1950s with her husband, Richard Sampson, a Bates College mathematics professor, and she played a unique and critical role in the state until her death in 1996. Over the course of her life in Maine, she served as the founder of the first chapter of the NAACP in Maine, local and …

Memory Of A Racist Past — Yazoo: Integration In A Deep-Southern Town By Willie Morris, Nick J. Sciullo

Nick J. Sciullo

Willie Morris was in many ways larger than life. Born in Jackson, Mississippi, he moved with his family to Yazoo City, Mississippi at the age of six months. He attended and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin where his scathing editorials against racism in the South earned him the hatred of university officials. After graduation, he attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship. He would join Harper’s Magazine in 1963, rising to become the youngest editor-in-chief in the magazine’s history. He remained at this post until 1971 when he resigned amid dropping ad sales and a lack of …

American Commemorative Panels: Twentieth-Century Poets, United States Postal Service. Stamp Division

Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Stamp Collection

Informational pages for Twentieth-Century Poets (Gwendolyn Brooks) Commemorative Stamp – American Commemorative Panels, includes images of the stamps, information about the physical stamp and information about the Twentieth-Century Poets.. First issued April 21, 2012.

American Commemorative Panels: William H. Johnson, United States Postal Service. Stamp Division

Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Stamp Collection

Informational page for William H. Johnson Commemorative Stamp – American Commemorative Panels, includes images of the stamps and biographical information for William H. Johnson. First issued April 11, 2012.

Black Heritage Stamp Series: John H. Johnson, United States Postal Service. Stamp Division

Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Stamp Collection

Informational pages for John H. Johnson Commemorative stamp – Black Heritage Series, includes images of the stamps, information about the physical stamps and biographical information for John H. Johnson. First issued January 31, 2012, 35th in a series.

C.C. Bryant: A Race Man Is What They Called Him, Judith E. Barlow Roberts

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many historical contributions have been made to Civil Rights movement history in Mississippi. Thus far, historian John Dittmer's, Local People: the Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi has provided the most thorough account of lesser known movement activist. There still exists a need for scholarship from the perspective of community leaders. Curtis Conway Bryant, better known as C.C. Bryant served as the McComb Pike County chapter president of the NAACP from 1954 to 1984. During the summer of 1964, McComb was known as the bombing capital of the world. Throughout the nineteen fifties Bryant worked with national and local NAACP …

"You Understand Me Now": Sampling Nina Simone In Hip Hop, Amanda Renae Modell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The overarching goal of this research is to explicate the implications of hip hop artists sampling Nina Simone's music in their work. By regarding Simone as a critical social theorist in her own right, one can hear the ways that hip hop artists are mobilizing her tradition of socially active self-definition from the Civil Rights/Black Power era(s) in the post-2000 United States. By examining both the lyrics and the instrumental compositions of Lil Wayne, Juelz Santana, Common, Tony Moon, Talib Kweli, Mary J. Blige and Will.I.Am, G-Unit and Timbaland, and bearing in mind the intersecting oppressions of race, class, gender, …

American Commemorative Panels: Romare Bearden, United States Postal Service. Stamp Division

Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Stamp Collection

Informational pages for Romare Bearden Commemorative Stamp – American Commemorative Panels, includes images of the stamps, information about the physical stamp and biographical information for Romare Bearden. First issued September 28, 2011.

Black Heritage Stamp Series: Barbara Jordan, United States Postal Service. Stamp Division

Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Stamp Collection

Informational pages for Barbara Jordan Commemorative Stamp – Black Heritage Series, includes images of the stamps, information about the physical stamp and biographical information for Barbara Jordan. First issued September 16, 2011, 34th in a series.