History Commons^™

Italians Inside American Government: New York Politicians & Black Equality In The United States, From The 1920s-1950s, Nathanael Geraci

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the Italian-American fight for Black civil rights from New Yorkers in government. As congressmen, mayors, and governors during the 1920s-1950s, politicians of Italian descent worked consistently for the cause of African-American equality. Despite extensive documentation of their pro-Black action, the work of these Italian-Americans has remained hidden.

A Cleave Within The Piney Woods: Nacogdoches, Stephen F. Austin State University And How Racial Integration Divided The Town And Gown, Caitlin Hornback

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Stephen F. Austin State University was once the pride and joy of the city of Nacogdoches, Texas. When the Texas State Legislature began to look for a location for their new state normal school, the people of the East Texas town fought to have it built there and the Stephen F. Austin Teacher’s College opened its doors in September 1923 to a proud community. Through the trials and tribulations of early twentieth century events, the school managed to stay afloat and grow in numbers. Dr. Ralph W. Steen became the president of the college in 1958 and he oversaw a …

The Little Man With The Big Mouth Stands Up For Wisconsin: George Wallace And The Political And Constitutional Struggles Between Federalism And Equal Protection In Wisconsin Elections From 1964 To 1976, Ben Hubing

Theses and Dissertations

Alabama Governor George Wallace ran for the presidency four times between 1964 and 1976, bringing his candidacy north of the Mason-Dixon Line to Wisconsin. Wallace’s campaign in the Badger State fostered a debate among residents regarding constitutional principles and values. Wallace weaponized federalism and states’ rights, arguing that the federal government should stay out of school segregation, promote law and order, restrict forced busing, and reduce burdensome taxation. White working-class Wisconsinites armed themselves with Wallace’s rhetoric, pushing back on social and political changes that threatened the status quo. Civil rights activists and the black community in Wisconsin armed themselves with …

Bomba And The Evolution Of Puerto Rican Activism In New York, Katherine Smith

Capstones

While Bomba, a traditional dance style that originated in Puerto Rico, has recently become more visible to a mainstream national audience, local activists in New York City have been working for years to promote the art and elevate the history of their community. For dance leaders like Milteri Tucker, Bomba dancing is not only a celebration of Puerto Rico’s African heritage, but an effective way to address social issues within the city’s local and Latino community. She is one of many activists in the city’s history that has used art and community try to uplift the culture and work on …

The Shallow End Of The Deep South: Civil Rights Activism In Arkansas, 1865-1970, Sarah Riva

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

On April 7, 1968, Governor Winthrop Rockefeller claimed that “Arkansas today stands at the threshold of leading the nation...for a better America,” The Republican Arkansas Governor spoke on the steps of the state capitol at a memorial for the beloved civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. who had been assassinated three days earlier. Rockefeller’s claim that Arkansas could lead the nation came just two years after the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formally ended its work in the state to improve racial equality. Their efforts had seen widespread acceptance of integrated public facilities, increased voter registration and more meaningful …

For The People: The Historiography Of The Black Panther Party And Black Community Politics And Activism, Josh Perez

History - Master of Arts in Teaching

I.Synthesis Essay………………………………..3

II.Primary Documents and Headnotes………..26

III.Textbook Critique…………………………….36

IV.New Textbook Entry………………………….41

V.Bibliography…………………………………...49

Black Heritage Stamp Series: Gregory Hines, United States Postal Service. Stamp Division

Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Stamp Collection

Informational pages for Gregory Hines Commemorative stamp – Black Heritage Series, includes images of the stamps and biographical information for Gregory Hines. First issued January 28, 2019, 42nd in a series.

Huntington Civil Rights Oral History, Kelli Johnson

Ephemera

Civil Rights era stories from Appalachia project poster.

Speech: An Authentic Theology, Desmond Tutu

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Collection Textual

Archbishop Tutu's writings on black theology. Typed with a few handwritten notes.

Suing For Spanish: Puerto Ricans, Bilingual Voting, And Legal Activism In The 1970s, Ariel Arnau

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines how the legal activism of a Puerto Rican group of activist-lawyers and community members contributed to the reshaping of voting law and language policy during the 1970s. The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF) coordinated a series of lawsuits in Chicago, New York City, and Philadelphia during the early 1970s. The decisions in these lawsuits provided the legal framework to rewrite federal voting rights law during the Voting Rights Act (VRA) reauthorization hearings in 1975. These cases resulted in vastly expanded opportunity to vote for all language minorities in the United States. These civil rights …

Black Heritage Stamp Series: Lena Horne, United States Postal Service. Stamp Division

Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Stamp Collection

Informational pages for Lena Horne Commemorative stamp – Black Heritage Series, includes images of the stamps and biographical information for Lena Horne. First issued January 30, 2018, 41st in a series.

2018 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 speaker was Samuel Gresham, Jr. and also included several speeches & performances by Otterbein Students.

And They Entered As Ladies: When Race, Class And Black Femininity Clashed At Central High School, Misti Nicole Harper

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

“And They Entered as Ladies: When Race, Class and Black Femininity Clashed at Central High School,” explores the intersectionality of race, gender and class status as middle-class black women led the integration movement and were the focal point of white backlash during the 1957 Little Rock Central High School crisis. Six of the nine black students chosen to integrate Central High School were carefully selected girls from middle-class homes, whose mothers and female family members played active parts in keeping their daughters enrolled at Central, while Daisy Gatson Bates orchestrated the integration of the capital’s school system. Nevertheless, these women …

Playing His Own Game: Ernest 'Dutch' Morial's 1977 Mayoral Campaign For Citizen Participation In New Orleans, Eric Marshall

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Ernest “Dutch” Morial’s 1977 grassroots mayoral campaign disrupted the political status quo in New Orleans with his message of citizen participation. Morial’s citizen-driven campaign reached over the constituencies of established Black Political Organizations, capturing an eager audience with his message of political, social, and economic equality. With the help of volunteers and other community organizations, Morial created a grassroots campaign that focused on making city government more inclusive. Unattached to the traditional patronage structure, Mayor Morial empowered the black community, reducing the constraints of their political access. Although his legacy is difficult to discern in New Orleans current political realities, …

Right To Serve, Right To Lead: Lives And Legacies Of The Usct, Matthew D. Laroche, Hannah M. Christensen, Alexandria J. Andrioli, Jennifer A. Simone, Savannah G. Rose, Jonathan G. Danchik, Laurel J. Wilson, Jonathan E. Tracey, Danielle E. Jones, Ryan D. Bilger, Savannah A. Labbe

Civil War Institute Student Research

This is a catalog for an exhibit that follows the evolution of African-American participation in the Civil War, from slaves, to contrabands, to soldiers of the United States Colored Troops (USCT), as well as the lives of black veterans beyond the war, and their ultimate military and social legacy. Using a variety of period items, it creates a narrative that stretches from the Antebellum Period to the current day. In doing so, the exhibit shows how black sacrifice on the battlefield redefined the war's purpose throughout the divided nation, how Jim Crowe suppressed the memory of black participation after Reconstruction, …

Black Heritage Stamp Series: Dorothy Height, United States Postal Service. Stamp Division

Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Stamp Collection

Dorothy Height Commemorative stamp – Black Heritage Series, sheet of 20 stamps. First issued February 1, 2017, 40th in a series.

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 …

“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 …

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 …