History Commons^™

Using The Colonizers’ Own Weapons: The Politics Of Equality, Freedom, & Integration In Advocacy Against American Indian Termination, Eliza Kravitz

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Beginning in the early 1950s, the United States Congress enacted a program of “termination” of American Indian tribes. By eliminating the special relationship between tribes and the federal government, termination aimed at the full assimilation of American Indians into U.S. society. Government proponents advocated for termination using the language of equal rights, freedom, and integration. Previous scholarship has shown that anti-termination advocates, by contrast, appealed to the internationalist Cold War language of development, self-governance, and global decolonization to resist termination. These same leaders also invoked the civil rights language of termination’s proponents, however. Their arguments illustrated how the federal government …

Teaching The New Deal: 1932-1941 – Review And Analysis, Susan M. Foster, Brian Walker Johnson

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Teaching the New Deal: 1932-1941 is a text of crucial and timely importance for students and teachers of middle and high school social studies. Through the lenses of four major themes, authors demonstrate inquiry-based pedagogy to intentionally provoke students to consider non-binary conclusions that closely examine the purported heroes, villains, and martyrs of traditional historical narratives. Rather than presenting a factual or ideological approach to teaching disciplinary standards, this text depicts the New Deal Era as a period in history that can be used to critically and creatively discuss the politics of personal identity and to explore the legacies of …

A Historical Analysis Of Health Institutions, Professionals, And Advocates In The Civil Rights Movement In Columbia, South Carolina, Anusha Ghosh

Senior Theses

From 1900 to 1970, widespread racism severely restricted healthcare access for Black citizens in the South, leading them to establish and staff alternative healthcare institutions to support their community.

Such institutions faced debilitating issues such as chronic financial shortages and patient overflow. Despite these problems, oral histories, media, and primary written sources show that Black healthcare workers in alternative healthcare institutions demonstrated a greater ability to meet the health needs of Black patients due to cultural understanding and external community involvement.

Dr. Matilda Evans was an African-American woman physician who became a leader in medicine, public health, and education in …

Hot Springs' Hidden Heroes: Jim And Leander Tugerson, Chase Hartsell

Honors Colloquium

This is the poster for the honors colloquium, "Hot Spring' Hidden Heroes: Jim and Leander Tugerson," given by Chase Hartsell. The presentation took place on February 26, 2024, in the Walker Convention Center.

Children And The Cold War: Race & Hypocrisy Amid Fear Of Nuclear War, Richard D. Mctaggart Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

During the Cold War, American propaganda centered the wellbeing of the child in its messaging warning of atomic attack at the hands of the Soviet Union. However, despite American claims that all children were valued by the United States, this was proven untrue by its unequal treatment of Black children.

Remembering Conquest In Texas, Omar Valerio-Jimenez

Rondel V. Davidson Endowed Lecture Series

This presentation draws from Dr. Valerio-Jimenez's larger project, Remembering Conquest: Mexican Americans, Memory, and Citizenship, which explores the influence of collective memories of the U.S.-Mexico War (1846-48) on struggles for social change among Mexican Americans. It examines the collective memories disseminated among ethnic Mexicans through families, publications, and organizations. These memories offered alternative views of the war that not only challenged the dominant versions, but were invoked by Mexican Americans to remind the nation of the war's continuing legacies. The war instigated immediate intergroup conflict between European Americans and ethnic Mexicans that bore long-term effects by shaping the ways that …

Farnsworth, Susan, Larisa Filippov

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Susan Farnsworth is a 75 year old lesbian who has lived in Maine for over 50 years. She currently resides in Hallowell, ME, but has lived all over Maine and other places in New England. Farnsworth is an attorney and has her own law practice where she helps a variety of clients with their legal problems. She realized she was a lesbian while she was in law school during her marriage to a man. Farnsworth attended Bates College for her undergraduate degree before going to the University of Maine School of Law in Portland. The multiple political organizations she has …

Trade Books, Comics, And Local History: Exploring Fred Shuttleworth’S Fight For Civil Rights, Jeremiah Clabough, Caroline Sheffield

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

This one-week project utilized the trade book Black and White: The Confrontation between Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene Bull Connor (Brimner, 2011) to explore non-violent advocacies during the 1950s and 1960s civil rights movement. Students read selected excerpts from the trade book and created a comic narrative to convey their understanding of the civil rights advocacies of Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth in Birmingham, Alabama. The students were able to accurately portray Rev. Shuttlesworth’s actions in a cohesive narrative using evidence from the trade book within their comics. The students demonstrated a solid understanding of non-violent advocacies, and why these methods …

Cora Ann Westmoreland, Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Kelli Johnson conducting an oral history interview with Cora Westmoreland.

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African Americans Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

Sandra Clements, Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Kelli Johnson conducting an oral history interview with Sandra Clements.

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African American Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

Anna Belle King, Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Kelli Johnson conducting an oral history interview with Anna Belle King.

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African American Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

“From The House Come Everything”: Macler Shepard And Jeffvanderlou, Inc’S Effort To Rebuild A North St. Louis City Neighborhood, 1966-1978, Mark Loehrer

Theses

This thesis charts the course of the JeffVanderLou (JVL) organization between the pivotal years of 1966 to 1976, using the life of a man named Macler Shepard as the primary lens of exploration. Born in Marvell Arkansas, Macler Shepard followed in the footsteps of tens of thousands of other Southern migrants to cities like St. Louis, hoping to find a new life in the industrial North. However, no sooner had he settled in, he was displaced by the construction of Pruitt-Igoe, one of St. Louis’ first large-scale urban renewal programs. In response, Shepard became involved in neighborhood organizing, focusing on …

Shirley Ann Williams And Joseph L. Williams Jr. -- Part 2, Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Part 2 of Kelli Johnson's oral history interview with Shirley Ann and Joseph L. Williams Jr..

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African American Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

Higher Command: An Examination Of African American Leadership In The Vietnam Era, Amanda Abulawi

Master's Theses

Since the founding of the United States, African Americans have sacrificed their lives to uphold the nation’s democratic ideals, all while being denied equal access to voting, education, employment, and housing rights at home. Military service appealed to many African Americans who hoped it would lead to social and economic advancement for themselves and their race. Despite African American military participation throughout the nation’s history, these soldiers were treated as outsiders through segregated units and often relegated to non-combative duties, until the Vietnam War. This was the first major conflict in which African Americans had been deployed in large numbers …

Shirley Ann Williams And Joseph L. Williams Jr. -- Part 1, Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Part 1 of Kelli Johnson's oral history interview with Shirley Ann and Joseph L. Williams Jr..

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African American Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

William "Bill" Austin Smith Sr., Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Kelli Johnson conducting an oral history interview with Bill Smith.

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African American Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

The Robert Talbot Civil Rights Speaker Series Flyer_2021, University Of Maine Alumni Association, Greater Bangor Area Branch Naacp

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Flyer for the inauguration of The Robert Talbot Civil Rights Speaker Series featuring "Fighting Times" coauthors Amy Banks and Isaac Knapper.

Marcia Lynn Hoard Williams, Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Kelli Johnson conducting an oral history interview with Marcia Williams.

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African American Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

The Counterculture Generation: Idolized, Appropriated, And Misunderstood, Rina R. Bousalis

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Students today possess the impression that all members of the 1960s-70s counterculture generation, or hippies, were long-haired radicals who engaged in deviant behavior. This is attributable to the way media has portrayed youth from this era. Contemporary youth have appropriated the counterculture style without understanding the movement. Businesses transformed the hippies into symbolic commodities, thus reducing their historical significance. This paper describes the implications of this shift and how educators should go beyond the emblematic symbols to teach the counterculture movement in a meaningful way.

Worse Than Birmingham: How Segregationists In Danville Obstructed The Civil Rights Movement, Lauren E. Oakes

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This thesis explores the civil rights movement in Danville, Virginia, and focuses on the tactics employed by prominent white men who, because they controlled the city’s leading institutions of power, were able to effectively squelch the movement by the end of the 1963 summer. This paper also traces how the Danville movement followed the path of the classical phase of the national civil rights movement, and represents the manner in which broader trends and events played out in small southern cities. The Danville movement began with a student-led sit-in at the whites only public library a few months after the …

“Did Emmett Till Die In Vain? Organized Labor Says No!”: The United Packinghouse Workers And Civil Rights Unionism In The Mid-1950s, Matthew Nichter

Faculty Publications

Emmett Till’s mangled face is seared into our collective memory, a tragic epitome of the brutal violence that upheld white supremacy in the Jim Crow South. But Till's murder was more than just a tragedy: it also inspired an outpouring of determined protest, in which labor unions played a prominent role. The United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) campaigned energetically on behalf of Emmett Till, from the stockyards of Chicago to the sugar refineries of Louisiana. Packinghouse workers petitioned, marched, and rallied to demand justice; the UPWA organized the first mass meeting addressed by Till’s mother, Mamie Bradley; and an …

“Attracted By The Light But Repelled By The Heat”: The Final Years Of The Southern Conference Educational Fund (Scef) And The Turn To The New Communist Movement In The South., Hannah C. White

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

This thesis focuses on the final years of the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF), including the organization’s split in 1973. During the late sixties and early seventies, SCEF operated, with its headquarters in Louisville, as an interracial southern civil rights organization that focused on organizing whites in the struggle against racism, oppression, and exploitation. This thesis unpacks SCEF’s relationship with Louisville’s Black Panther Party and examines the ways in which interracial organizing grew to be more problematic during the turn of the decade with the rise of nationalism, Black Power, and a new attention to the intransigent racism that continued …

Us, Abundantly: From Africa To The Americas, Karisma Jay

Theses and Dissertations

"Us, AbunDantly," a Live theatrical dance performance and film, delves into the African Diaspora and its influences. An artistic and academic project built upon the amplification of Black excellence and Black pride, this paper contextualizes a work within the oral histories and contemporary dance studies of a powerfully ancestral community.

The 1950s: The Ironies Of American Power, Andrew Finstuen

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the 1950s, Reinhold Niebuhr advanced a theology of history rooted in his theology of the Cross. From that vantage point, he challenged conventional, dualistic interpretations of the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, and America’s post-Second World War economic and technological prominence. While he favoured democracy over communism, African American rights over segregation, and abundance over scarcity, he rejected what he thought of as the human pretension to simplify such complex historical phenomena by appeals to American goodness. Instead Niebuhr saw the logic of the Cross as the surest route for navigating the confusion and ironies of history while …

"To Claim That Greatness For Themselves”: A History Of The Kentucky Horse Park, Emily Elizabeth Libecap

Theses and Dissertations--History

The Kentucky Horse Park describes itself as the world’s only equine theme park. However, the park is not entirely without historical precedent; instead, world’s fairs, amusement parks, and theme parks all form a century-long pedigree chart through which the park can trace its ancestors. The Kentucky Horse Park’s links to these predecessors deepen our understanding of how the park is a reflection of the world around it and the motivations for how and why it was built. From its inception in the late 1960s, to when it opened in 1978, through the present day, the Kentucky Horse Park was and …

Blacks In Oregon, Darrell Millner

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Periodically, newspaper or magazine articles appear proclaiming amazement at how white the population of Oregon and the City of Portland is compared to other parts of the country. It is not possible to argue with the figures—in 2017, there were an estimated 91,000 Blacks in Oregon, about 2 percent of the population—but it is a profound mistake to think that these stories and statistics tell the story of the state's racial past. In fact, issues of race and the status and circumstances of Black life in Oregon are central to understanding the history of the state, and perhaps its future …

Blacklisted But Not Defeated: Jack Foner Returned To Academe After 30 Years And Made Colby A Leader In African-American Studies, Gerry Boyle

Colby Magazine

Colby hired Jack Foner and in a single stroke, a then nearly all-white liberal arts college in Maine became home to one of the first African-American Studies programs in the country.

"With Malice Towards None": The Springfield, Illinois Race Riot Of 1908, Andrew Carlson

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

On Saturday, March 4th, 1865, a tall man with dark, tussled hair and a beard, dressed in a large great coat with top hat removed, stood on the portico of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., addressing the large crowd that had gathered to hear him speak. These civilians crowded near to the balcony, not only to hear the speaker but also to fend off the cold, leftover from the rain of the preceding weeks. After briefly discussing the issues of civil war and slavery, he appealed to the Almighty for assistance and closed with these now familiar lines: "With …

“We Are Worried Mothers:” A Panel Of “Ordinary South Africans” On Us Capitol Hill, Myra Ann Houser

Articles

In 1986, a “panel of ordinary South Africans” addressed members of the US Congress. Their visit did not command as much attention as would the visit of (future president) Nelson Mandela in 1990 or as did (former prime minister) Jan Smuts in 1930. Yet, for an increasing number of Americans watching closely, it represented a momentous public rebuttal to apartheid. The visit responded to ongoing celebrity protests and built public support for sanctions. While many Americans instigating “designer arrests” believed that they spoke for South Africans, in 1986, physicians, activists, and children who had faced detention spoke for themselves on …

"A New Era In Building": African American Educational Activism In Goochland County, Virginia, 1911-32, Brian J. Daugherity, Alyce Miller

History Publications

An examination of African American educational activism in the early twentieth century in Goochland County, Virginia, including the Rosenwald school building program.