History Commons^™

The Cost Of Myth-Making: Racial Tension And School Desegregation In Memphis, Amy J. Barger

Honors Theses

In Memphis, the desire of white parents to keep their children out of integrated schools stemmed partially from their fear of contact with blacks. This push factor may seem obvious; surely misconceptions about race contributed to nearly every instance of white flight in the South. I argue that in Memphis, however, racial tensions caused many whites to harbor an especially acute fear of contact with blacks. By the time of the debates over busing, two traumatic events had lodged themselves in the recent memories of white Memphians: the sanitation strike of 1968 and the Black Monday school boycotts of 1969. …

"System Of Silence": Philadelphia Orphanages And The Limits Of Benevolence, 1780s-1830s, Brian Sweeney

Honors Theses

In 1831, Mathew Carey, a well-known Philadelphia economist, wrote a city official describing the situation of black children in the city. He called for the creation of an orphanage to aid these children and described the motives for this action as not only the “humanity and benevolence” of Philadelphians, but also “personal interest”, as this class could otherwise turn “lawless”. Unknown to Carey, the Association for the Care of Coloured Orphans had been established in 1822 by a group of benevolent Quaker women dedicated to aiding this destitute class in an effort to promote compensatory justice for generations of oppression …

Raising The Hatchet Or Raising The Glass: Prohibition In Clark County, Arkansas, Katie Mccormack

Honors Theses

Prohibition did not begin with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1920, nor did it end after the repeal of the Prohibition Movement in 1933 . In fact, by the time national prohibition was sent to the states for ratification, twenty-seven states had already adopted statewide prohibition laws. When national prohibition was repealed, previously enacted state prohibition laws remained intact. Therefore, despite the repeal of prohibition at the national level, thirty-eight percent of the nation's population lived in areas with state or local prohibition after 1933.

After national repeal, however, state prohibition laws were gradually abandoned as more regions …