African American Studies Commons^™

The Fight For Equality: African American Seabees During World War Ii, Victoria Castillo

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

This thesis outlines the Navy’s movement towards black inclusion from the beginning of World War I to the end of World War II through the lens of African American Seabees as well as the two integrated Seabee Battalions, 34^th and 80^th. While examining African American Seabees during World War II, one can see the injustices they were facing in the Navy. Seabees are one of the forgotten branches during World War II, but while examining the history of African Americans serving in the U.S. Navy and the Seabees, we start to understand how they were able to …

Bibliography For "Martin Luther King Jr. Day: A Display Of Books Honoring Martin Luther King Jr.", Isabella Piechota, Kalea Brown

Library Displays and Bibliographies

A bibliography created to accompany a display about Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in January 2023 at the Leatherby Libraries at Chapman University.

International Connection, Domestic Radicalization: The Connection Between East Asia And Black Radicals, Randy O. Felder

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

Utilizing newspapers, journals and pamphlets, this thesis examines the ways that the Black Power movement, primarily in the 1960’s connected with East Asian countries.

Differentiating between the Black Power and the Civil Rights groups, this thesis will show why and how the Black Power movement needed international allies such as China and Vietnam.

Showing that the connection between the East Asia and Black Power groups was due to racism, imperialism, and Maoism, I argue that Black Power individuals/groups were influenced by East Asia and saw these countries as a blueprint for revolution in America. This thesis also analyzes the significance …

Crossing The 'Color Bar': African American Soldiers In Britain And Australia During The Second World War, Joseph A. Dickinson

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

During the Second World War, African American soldiers were stationed all over the world as part of the American war effort. During these deployments, African Americans encountered a number of white societies, such as those in Britain and Australia, which they generally interacted with cordially. Good relations between African American soldiers and the local white populations angered many white servicemembers, who saw the lack of Jim Crow style segregation as a threat to the racial status quo, and attempted to enforce segregation overseas themselves. These attempts were often resisted fiercely by African American soldiers and the local white populations, both …

Toward Culturally Competent Archival (Re)Description Of Marginalized Histories, Annie Tang, Dorothy Berry, Kelly Bolding, Rachel E. Winston

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

Influenced by the radical archives movement, panelists discuss their (re)processing projects for which they wrote or rewrote descriptions in culturally competent approaches. Their case studies include materials regarding underrepresented peoples and historically oppressed groups who are marginalized from or maligned in the archival record. Targeted to processors, this session aims to teach participants to apply their cultural competencies in writing finding aids through an introduction to cultural competency framework, the case study examples, and a short audience-participation exercise.

"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 Angel And The Imp: The Duncan Sisters’ Performances Of Race And Gender, Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

From 1923 to 1959 Vivian and Rosetta Duncan performed the show Topsy and Eva in front of thousands of audiences in the United States and abroad. This essay examines how the Duncan Sisters’ appropriation of blackness through a yin and yang performance of black and white womanhood, their sexualized but ultimately infantilizing routine as young girls, and their take on anarchistic comedy resulted in a particular spin on age, gender, race, and sexuality that reinforced their privilege as white women even while it pushed the boundaries of acceptable femininity in the swiftly shifting American culture of the first half of …

Review Of "Harlem's Hell Fighters: The African-American 369th Infantry In World War I" By Stephen L. Harris, Jennifer D. Keene

History Faculty Articles and Research

This is a review of Stephen L. Harris' "Harlem's Hell Fighters: The African-American 369th Infantry in World War I."