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Full-Text Articles in African American Studies
"Go In De Wilderness": Evading The "Eyes Of Others" In The Slave Songs, Erik Nielson
"Go In De Wilderness": Evading The "Eyes Of Others" In The Slave Songs, Erik Nielson
School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications
This essay explores the trope of the wilderness in the slave spirituals, arguing that it functions to recreate symbolically the natural landscape into which slaves regularly took refuge in order to elude white surveillance. Drawing on a variety of sources, it considers the unique surveillance culture in the antebellum South, its effect on the everyday lives of the slaves, and the ways in which the slaves used their natural surroundings to avoid it. It then uses a close analysis of the song "Go in the Wilderness " as a point of departure for a broader discussion of the way the …
Church Burnings, Eric S. Yellin
Church Burnings, Eric S. Yellin
History Faculty Publications
On 15 September 1963 a bomb exploded in the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. The ensuing fire and death of four little girls placed the violence of white supremacy on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers. It also entered the 16th Street Church into a long history of attacks against houses of worship in the American South. Though churches burn for any number of reasons, including accident and insurance fraud, church arson in southern culture has frequently been associated with a symbolic assault on a community’s core institution.