History Commons^™

Dawson, Ella Mai (Randolph), 1892-1991 (Mss 397), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 397. Family correspondence, church materials, greeting cards and other personal papers of Ella Mai (Randolph) Dawson, a native of Logan County, Kentucky and resident of Clarksville, Tennessee. Includes voter registration and urban renewal materials relating to African Americans.

A Company Of Shadows: Slaves And Poor Free Menial Laborers In Cumberland County, Maine, 1760 – 1775, Charles P.M. Outwin

Maine History

Although slaves and poor, free menial laborers were by no means a majority of the population in late colonial-era Maine, they represented a culturally and socioeconomically significant part of commercial society there, especially at Falmouth in Casco Bay (now Portland) and in coastal Cumberland County. This essay uncovers the lives of the Falmouth’s small slave population and its larger poor menial laborer population from 1760 up to the port city’s destruction by the British in 1775. The author was granted a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maine in 2009. He is a member of the Maine Historical Society, …

Angel, E. M. (Sc 420), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 420. Notice, Greensburg, Kentucky, to the African-American men of the 4th Congressional District, asking for recruits with bounties being offered, and stating that if they do not volunteer, they will be drafted. Signed by E.M. Angel, Deputy Provost Marshal, 4th Congressional District.

Warren County, Kentucky - Court Records (Sc 2529), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2529. Two slave bills of sale (1849, 1856) to Tobias S. Grider, and agreement (1861) of a family of emancipated African Americans to be enslaved by William Davenport.

Warren County, Kentucky - Court Records (Sc 2528), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2528. Summons to jury and witnesses and charge in the case of Lucy, an enslaved woman, accused of attempting to murder her owner’s wife with an axe in 1814.

Warren County, Kentucky - Court Records (Sc 2527), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2527. Warrant (1822) to sheriff to take custody of a free mulatto man found in Warren County; certificates (2) and appointment (1) relating to slave patrols in Warren County (1824-1825); and undated power of attorney authorizing apprehension of a fugitive slave from New Orleans, Louisiana.

The 1868 St. Landry Massacre: Reconstruction's Deadliest Episode Of Violence, Matthew Christensen

Theses and Dissertations

The St. Landry Massacre is representative of the pervasive violence and intimidation in the South during the 1868 presidential canvass and represented the deadliest incident of racial violence during the Reconstruction Era. Southern conservatives used large scale collective violence in 1868 as a method to gain political control and restore the antebellum racial hierarchy. From 1865-1868, these Southerners struggled against the federal government, carpetbaggers, and Southern black populations to gain this control, but had largely failed in their attempts. After the First Reconstruction Act of March, 1867 forced Southern governments to accept universal male suffrage, Southern conservatives utilized violence and …

Intimate Frontiers: Indians, French, And Africans In Colonial Mississippi Valley, Sonia Toudji

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Historians have agreed that the French were more successful than their competitors in developing cordial relations with Native Americans during the conquest of North America. French diplomatic savoir faire and their skill at trading with Indians are usually cited to explain this success, but the Spaniards relied upon similar policies of trade and gift giving, while enjoying considerably less success with the Indians. Intimate Frontiers proposes an alternative model to understand the relative success of French Colonization in North America. Intimate Frontiers, an ethno-historical examination of the colonial encounters in the Lower French Louisiana, focuses on the Social relations between …

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.

U.S. President Barack Obama, Svg Postal Corporation

Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Stamp Collection

Washington D.C. – April 20, 2012, President Obama signs a proclamation in the Oval Office of the White House, Mustique, Grenadines of St. Vincent, sheet of one stamp. The President Obama International Stamp Collection.

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.

Korn, Mike (Sc 2516), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text transcription (click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2516. Interview conducted by Mike Korn and a Mr. Starks with Reverend Earl J. Jackson, Bowling Green, Kentucky in reference to the religious and educational work of Reverend Henry David Carpenter.

Reading Between The Lines Of Slavery: Examining New England Runaway Ads For Evidence Of An Afro-Yankee Culture, Lauren Landi

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

This paper focuses on New England slavery and the way Africans and African-Americans were able to infuse aspects of the dominant English culture and their combined African heritage into their own Afro-Yankee culture. They created their own American identity, in which they adopted and at times mocked the very culture that placed them in this system of bondage. By looking at runaway advertisements from the colonial era we can see evidence of an Afro-Yankee culture that is clearly visible in the clothes slaves wore, the hairstyles they kept, their mannerisms, talents, and overall presence.

New Orleans Unveiled: Fanon And A Reconceptualization Of The Performative, Lynnell Thomas

Lynnell Thomas

This article examines Frantz Fanon's "Algeria Unveiled" as a reconceptualization of J. L. Austin's theory of the performative. Austin, whose examples of the performative all assume an equal, if not harmonious, relationship, overlooks instances of incompatibility and inequality. Fanon's post-colonial framework, in contrast, illustrates the markedly different types of intentions, uptake, and conventions which inform the speech act in cases of extreme inequality. In these cases, the powerless and seemingly voiceless use tacitly agreed upon conventions inappropriately to attain what they would not be able to have otherwise. Fanon's notion of the performative is used to explore the performative resistance …

A People's History Of Baseball, Mitchell J. Nathanson

Mitchell J Nathanson

Baseball is much more than the national pastime. It has become an emblem of America itself. From its initial popularity in the mid-nineteenth century, the game has reflected national values and beliefs and promoted what it means to be an American. Stories abound that illustrate baseball's significance in eradicating racial barriers, bringing neighborhoods together, building civic pride, and creating on the field of play an instructive civics lesson for immigrants on the national character. In A People's History of Baseball, Mitchell Nathanson probes the less well-known but no less meaningful other side of baseball: episodes not involving equality, patriotism, heroism, …

Interview Conducted By Joseph Carl Ruff With Herbert Alexander Oldham (Fa 166), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Oral Histories

Transcription of an interview conducted by Joseph Carl Ruff with Herbert Alexander Oldham on 15 May 1993 in Bowling Green, Kentucky. They discuss African American education in Bowling Green, Kentucky, integration, and segregation. They also discuss Oldham's education at St. Augustine College in Raleigh, North Carolina, his teaching career and education administration positions in Bowling Green, his family background, and his experiences as an African American youth in Bowling Green.

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.

Taft, Ann Celine (Fa 49), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 49. Oral history interview with The Straightway Gospel Singers from Gallatin, Tennessee conducted by Ann Celine Taft for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University. Subsequent paper titled "The Straightway Gospel Singers" also included.

Study Guide For United In Anger: A History Of Act Up, Matt Brim

Open Educational Resources

The United in Anger Study Guide facilitates classroom and activist engagement with Jim Hubbard’s 2012 documentary, United in Anger: A History of ACT UP. The Study Guide contains discussion sections, projects and exercises, and resources for further research about the activism of the New York chapter of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). The Study Guide is a free, interactive, multimedia resource for understanding the legacy of ACT UP, the film’s role in preserving that legacy, and its meaning for viewers' lives.

Interview Of Cherylyn Rush, Cherylyn Rush, Linda Sago

All Oral Histories

Cherylyn Landora Edwards Rush was born in 1959 in Shirley, Massachusetts. Mrs. Rush moved to Pennsylvania at a very young age. Her father, Lester Edwards, was in the military. After her parents divorced, Cherylyn’s mother Pearl developed ovarian cancer and passed away when Cherylyn was about seven years old. Her grandmother Louise Jackson then cared for Cherylyn until she went to live with their father. Mr. Edwards had remarried. When Cherylyn’s father and her stepmother divorced, she returned to Philadelphia, PA and attended William Penn High School. Cherylyn earned her high school diploma although she was pregnant with her son. …

Interview Of Minister Rodney Muhammad, Rodney Muhammad, Venold Johnson

All Oral Histories

Minister Rodney Muhammad (born Rodney Ellis) was born in 1952 in Chicago, Illinois, where he grew up in the South Shore neighborhood. His father, Jim Ellis, played football for Michigan State University, graduated from there with a degree in sociology, played for the Chicago Bears, and was a social worker. His mother, Kathryn Ellis, attended Roosevelt University, was the first black model for Ford in Detroit, Michigan, and achieved a Ph.D. in Public Administration. Rodney Muhammad majored in business administration at DePaul University and worked as an estate planner before he entered the Nation of Islam. At the time of …

“Don't Call Me A Student-Athlete”: The Effect Of Identity Priming On Stereotype Threat For Academically Engaged African American College Athletes, Keith Harrison

Dr. C. Keith Harrison

Academically engaged African American college athletes are most susceptible to stereotype threat in the classroom when the context links their unique status as both scholar and athlete. After completing a measure of academic engagement, African American and White college athletes completed a test of verbal reasoning. To vary stereotype threat, they first indicated their status as a scholar-athlete, an athlete, or as a research participant on the cover page. Compared to the other groups, academically engaged African American college athletes performed poorly on the difficult test items when primed for their athletic identity, but they performed worse on both the …

"Spectacular Opacities": The Hyers Sisters' Performances Of Respectability And Resistance, Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

This essay analyzes the Hyers Sisters, a Reconstruction-era African American sister act, and their radical efforts to transcend social limits of gender, class, and race in their early concert careers and three major productions, Out of Bondage and Peculiar Sam, or The Underground Railroad, two slavery-to-freedom epics, and Urlina, the African Princess, the first known African American play set in Africa. At a time when serious, realistic roles and romantic plotlines featuring black actors were nearly nonexistent due to the country’s appetite for stereotypical caricatures, the Hyers Sisters used gender passing to perform opposite one another as heterosexual lovers in …

Review Of "Brothers To The Buffalo Soldiers: Perspectives On The African American Militia And Volunteers, 1865-1917" By Bruce Glasrud, Jennifer D. Keene

History Faculty Articles and Research

This is a review of Bruce Glasrud's "Brothers to the Buffalo Soldiers: Perspectives on the African American Militia and Volunteers."

The Roots And Routes Of "Imperium In Imperio": St. Clair Drake, The Formative Years, Andrew Rosa

History Faculty Publications

Marking the centenary of St. Clair Drake's birth, this examination begins the project of recovering one of the most underrated minds of the twentieth century by situating him within the community(s) that initially served to form him. Illustrative of the social theory of a black community outlined in Black Metropolis, Drake's lineage and formative years suggests that his was a cultural identity rooted in and routed through a series of racially constructed, semi-autonomous black life worlds, each held together by the collective desires of those made most vulnerable by the upheavals of capitalism and the caste-enforcing structures of segregation …

Introduction, Barbara Lewis

Trotter Review

What is the political valence of blackness at the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century; has it waxed or waned? Is it headed to greater potency or back into the dark days of the past when complexion determined the worth of character? Major political advances have been achieved nationally in the last ten years, most significantly in the election of the nation’s first African American president. Yet a resistant status quo remains. The push to unseat President Obama is virulent, and it is hard to imagine that all of the motivation to do so is tied only …

Introduction To "The Americans Are Coming! Dreams Of African American Liberation In Segregationist South Africa", Robert T. Vinson

Arts & Sciences Book Chapters

For more than half a century before World War II, black South Africans and “American Negroes”—a group that included African Americans and black West Indians—established close institutional and personal relationships that laid the necessary groundwork for the successful South African and American antiapartheid movements. Though African Americans suffered under Jim Crow racial discrimination, oppressed Africans saw African Americans as free people who had risen from slavery to success and were role models and potential liberators.

Many African Americans, regarded initially by the South African government as “honorary whites” exempt from segregation, also saw their activities in South Africa as a …

I'M Really Just An American: The Archaeological Importance Of The Black Towns In The American West And Late-Nineteenth Century Constructions Of Blackness, Shea Aisha Winsett

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Strange Fruit: Images Of African Americans In Advertising Cards And Postcards, 1860-1930, Meghan Brooke Holder

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

A Bold Promise: Black Readjusters And The Founding Of Virginia State University, Leigh Alexandra Soares

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.