History Commons^™

Brushaber, Skip, Jack Barrett, Branden Pratt

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Skip Brushaber is a 71-year old gay man who uses he/his/him pronouns. Skip worked as a nurse and social worker during the AIDS crisis. He was born in Buffalo, New York, on January 9th, 1947. Skip studied English in college but later became a nurse and social worker. He lived in New York and Pennsylvania before moving to Portland in 1980. He helped found the AIDS Project in 1983, a group in Portland that helped support individuals dealing with AIDS, and founded and wrote for Our Paper throughout the 80s, an LGBTQ paper aimed at covering issues related to queerness …

Social Media Activism The Subject Of Recent Discussion, Emily Turner

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

On Nov. 6 the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Colloquium Series held its second discussion of the fall semester. Dr. Judith Rosenbaum gave the talk titled “#TakingAKnee: Exploring justice, respect, and patriotism on Instagram and Twitter.” Rosenbaum is an assistant professor of communication and journalism at the University of Maine whose research includes social and health effects of media. The theme of this talk surrounded creating meaning on social media platforms. It featured discussion on the hashtag #TakingAKnee and how this social movement has opened a new dialogue nationwide. Rosenbaum recognized that Colin Kaepernick played a large role in initiating …

The Invisible Crisis: Framing The Remediation Of Milwaukee's Lead Laterals, Isabella Rieke

Theses and Dissertations

When Milwaukee’s municipal water system was developed in 1874, one-half-inch lead pipes were used to convey water from the mains in the street to a customer’s home; the City has since acknowledged that nearly 100,000 such lead pipes are still in use today, a revelation which has opened for debate whether or not these pipes pose a galvanizing public health risk with far-reaching policy and infrastructure implications. This study explores the community response to Milwaukee’s lead laterals through the efforts of the Freshwater for Life Action Coalition (FLAC). How do Milwaukeeans understand the risks posed by the lead laterals? In …

Counter Institution: Activist Estates Of The Lower East Side [Bibliography], Nandini Bagchee

New York State City & Regional

In the midst of current debates about the accessibility of public spaces, resurfacing as a result of highly visible demonstrations and occupations, this book illuminates an overlooked domain of civic participation: the office, workshop, or building where activist groups meet to organize and plan acts of political dissent and collective participation. Author Nandini Bagchee examines three re-purposed buildings on the Lower East Side that have been used by activists to launch actions over the past forty years. The Peace Pentagon was the headquarters of the anti-war movement, El Bohio was a metaphoric “hut” that envisioned the Puerto Rican Community as …

Racial Constructions And Activism Within Graphic Literature. An Analysis Of Hank Mccoy, The Beast, Juan D. Alfonso

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through a post-modern lens, I will primarily focus on comics books published by Marvel Comics to demonstrate the myriad of ways in which graphic literature is used as a subversive tool of sociopolitical discourse. I will demonstrate this by deconstructing and redefining the role of myth as a means of transferring ethical practices through societies and the ways in which graphic literature serves this function within the space of a modern and increasingly atheistic society. The thesis first demonstrates how the American Civil Rights Movement was metaphorically translated and depicted to the pages of Marvel’s X-Men comics to expose its …

President Jimmy Carter As An Activist?: Understanding President Carter’S Human Rights Policy In El Salvador During 1980 Through A Social Justice Lens, Vanaaisha Das Pamnani

History

During 1980, Salvadoran citizens endured increased violence, torture, and overall suppression of their basic human rights. Many prominent figures were assassinated by either right-wing death squads or leftist insurgents. Then on December 2, 1980 came the murder of four American churchwomen from the Maryknoll Order. Their purpose was to aid the poor within Latin America; El Salvador gave them the opportunity to help the Salvadoran poor in the midst of this violence. However, they were met with suspicion by security forces and, as a result were raped and killed on a dirt road. Within a week, President Jimmy Carter cut …

African American Women And The Women's Suffrage Movement In Knoxville, Tn, Ashley B. Farrington

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and despite the fact that white women often discriminated against them, African American women across the United States worked to obtain voting rights for all women. Nationally, black women used the African American club movement and their experiences in church benevolent societies to advocate for women’s suffrage. In some cases, however, a widespread and thriving club movement did not lead to suffrage activities. In Knoxville, Tennessee, there is no evidence that the clubwomen participated in the suffrage movement. This thesis outlines the specific social conditions that caused to black clubwomen’s lack of …

Theories Of Anzaldua And Fanon: The Battle Of Algiers To Black Lives Matter, Maren Carey

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Cultural theorists have analyzed and exposed many elements of culture that were otherwise out of plain sight. Two theorists, Gloria E. Anzaldua and Franz Fanon, that have done exceptional work attempting to shatter the norms of how concepts such as decolonization, violence and activism could truly work to create progress. Fanon discusses concepts of black existentialism in the early 20th century. He explores how difficult it is, primarily for people of color, to express and develop an identity within the structures of inequality embedded globally through colonization. Anzaldua, on the other hand, does similar work but through micro-cultural changes that …

The Rock Of Red Power: The 1969-1971 Occupation Of Alcatraz Island, Sarah Spalding

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

When over 90 Native Americans first made the voyage to Alcatraz Island on a November 1969 morning, there was little that could be predicted about what would unfold in the coming years. Alcatraz Island, the infamous prison that held criminals on the forefront of world news in the early twentieth century, would soon become an activist symbol. What followed November 20, 1969 was almost two years of continued Native American occupation of the island and a whirlwind of both media and federal attention. By the end of 1971, the remaining occupiers of Alcatraz were forcibly removed by federal marshals. However, …

A Divided Generation: How Anti-Vietnam War Student Activists Overcame Internal And External Divisions To End The War In Vietnam, Jeffrey L. Lauck

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

Far too often, student protest movements and organizations of the 1960s and 1970s are treated as monolithic in their ideologies, goals, and membership. This paper dives into the many divides within groups like Students for a Democratic Society and Young Americans for Freedom during their heyday in the Vietnam War Era. Based on original primary source research on the “Radical Pamphlets Collection” in Musselman Library Special Collections, Gettysburg College, this study shows how these various student activist groups both overcame these differences and were torn apart by them. The paper concludes with a discussion about what made the Vietnam War …

We’Ve Come A Long Way (Baby)! Or Have We? Evolving Intellectual Freedom Issues In The Us And Florida, L. Bryan Cooper, A.D. Beman-Cavallaro

Works of the FIU Libraries

This paper analyzes a shifting landscape of intellectual freedom (IF) in and outside Florida for children, adolescents, teens and adults. National ideals stand in tension with local and state developments, as new threats are visible in historical, legal, and technological context. Examples include doctrinal shifts, legislative bills, electronic surveillance and recent attempts to censor books, classroom texts, and reading lists.

Privacy rights for minors in Florida are increasingly unstable. New assertions of parental rights are part of a larger conservative animus. Proponents of IF can identify a lessening of ideals and standards that began after doctrinal fruition in the 1960s …

Editorial: Challenging Diversity In Maine, Sarah Allisot

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Education is one of our best safeguards against ignorance. Without the crucial work of activist groups, representation would take a serious blow in our mostly-white state. Race demographics from the 2010 U.S. Census report that Maine is 94.8 percent white, with the remaining population split among several racial groups. The census also reports that black residents of Maine make up less than 1 percent of our population. Forbes reported on the 2016-2017 academic year demographics of the University of Maine, showing a modest 2 percent population of black students. Needless to say, Maine is mostly white, and very sheltered from …

Filipino American National Democratic Activism: A Lens To Seek Historical Justice For U.S. Imperialism In The Philippines, Melissa Manlulu Harris

Honors Papers

Historical justice projects have emerged within the past 20 to 30 years throughout the world in an attempt to rectify perpetrations throughout history, tackling apartheid, slavery, genocide, and colonialism. However, U.S. imperialism- a term that rarely emerges in American discourse- is a crime that has not seen justice, let a lone the light of day. This study specifically addresses the issue of American empire in the Philippines and how Filipino national democratic activists in the United States from the 1970s to the present have advocated against U.S. imperialism- which they argue continued in the decades beyond the Philippines- of this …

"Forget-Me-Not": The Politics Of Memory, Identity, And Community In Armenian America, Hannah Marijke Kim

Honors Papers

This project looks at how politicized identity and community was formed in Armenian America through the creation and dissemination of Armenian genocide memories. The Armenian genocide, which occurred in 1915, resulted in the mass dispersion of the Armenian people, and in great numbers to America. The traumatic genocidal experience, along with erasure by the Turkish government, has resulted in the genocide being the most seminal piece of Armenian community building and political organization. Most work done on the Armenian-American community and Armenian genocide focuses on the impact of non-recognition by the Turkish government. In my thesis, I seek to rediscover …

Gettysburg Historical Journal 2018

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

No abstract provided.

Writing Activism: Indigenous Newsprint Media In The Era Of Red Power, Elizabeth Best

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis reconstructs Indigenous activism in the era of Red Power, 1972-1976, by examining three newspapers, the Native Youth Movement (NYM), The Native Voice (TNV) and The Native People (TNP). By linking these newspapers, the overarching themes of 1970s Indigenous activism are explored in order to understand the social conditions faced by young Indigenous people. Through a content analysis of these newspapers, the author examines questions such as: what were the living conditions of Indigenous people during the 1970s? What mattered most to the journalists and editors of these papers? What did Indigenous grassroots activism in Western Canada look like …