African American Studies Commons^™

Black Autonomy As A Form Of Resistance And A Symbol Of Rebellion: A Comparative Study Of Robbins, Illinois, And Milwaukee Bronzeville (1920-1970), Nateya Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

Black towns and segregated Black neighborhoods are two examples of majority Black communities that were formed because of the racial discrimination African Americans faced. Previous research has examined majority Black communities from a deficit model; however, this paper highlights the assets of autonomy and resistance in two majority Black communities in the Midwest: Robbins, Illinois, and Milwaukee Bronzeville. This paper compares Robbins, Illinois, a Black town, and Milwaukee’s Bronzeville neighborhood, a segregated Black community, to answer the questions: How did African Americans in Robbins, Illinois, and Milwaukee Bronzeville use autonomous practices to navigate racial discrimination between 1920 and 1970? What …

A Beer For The People: Black Capitalism And The Brewing Industry In Civil Rights Era Wisconsin, John L. Harry

Theses and Dissertations

The term “Black Capitalism” was coined by Richard Nixon during the 1968 presidentialcampaign as a means of both quelling the unrest of the previous decade regarding the more volatile factions within the larger civil rights movement as well as helping African Americans enter the economic mainstream. Once president, Nixon’s rhetoric became a policy through the creation of the Office of Minority Business Enterprise and loans through the Small Business Administration. In 1970, a group of Black businessmen in Milwaukee took advantage of these programs to become the first Black brewery owners in Wisconsin when they purchased Peoples Brewing Company in …

The Little Man With The Big Mouth Stands Up For Wisconsin: George Wallace And The Political And Constitutional Struggles Between Federalism And Equal Protection In Wisconsin Elections From 1964 To 1976, Ben Hubing

Theses and Dissertations

Alabama Governor George Wallace ran for the presidency four times between 1964 and 1976, bringing his candidacy north of the Mason-Dixon Line to Wisconsin. Wallace’s campaign in the Badger State fostered a debate among residents regarding constitutional principles and values. Wallace weaponized federalism and states’ rights, arguing that the federal government should stay out of school segregation, promote law and order, restrict forced busing, and reduce burdensome taxation. White working-class Wisconsinites armed themselves with Wallace’s rhetoric, pushing back on social and political changes that threatened the status quo. Civil rights activists and the black community in Wisconsin armed themselves with …

That 90'S Kind Of Love: The Rise Of African American Romance Novels In Traditional Romance Publishing, Jamee Nicole Pritchard

Theses and Dissertations

In 1994, Pinnacle Books, an imprint of Kensington Publishing Corporation, launched a new line of romance novels that featured Black characters written by Black authors. The new line was called Arabesque, and it was the first of its kind in mainstream publishing dedicated to love stories that explored Black life and culture. The line influenced other publishers to follow suit in acquiring similar titles and authors, and because of the number of African American writers signed to major publishing houses in 1994, the year was deemed by the press as the birth of the African American romance novel. This study …

Responding To Change: Girl Scouts, Race, And The Feminist Movement, Phyllis E. Reske

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) is to teach girls to be giving, self-sufficient, and independent in their homes and communities through volunteer work and earning merit badges. Open to all girls since its inception, the GSUSA offers Girl Scouts training in both gender-conforming and nontraditional vocations. However, during the first half of the twentieth century, segregation and domesticity was emphasized in American society. The organization began to focus less on careers, independence, and racial inclusion to preparing predominately white girls to be good wives and mothers. As Black Power and women’s liberation …

Two Strivings: Uplift And Identity In African American Rhetorical Culture, 1900-1943, Jansen Blake Werner

Theses and Dissertations

During the late nineteenth- and early twentieth century, the notion of “uplift” functioned as a major thematic within African American rhetorical culture. In this milieu, “uplift” generally connoted a sense of collective self-help. However, in contrast to more generalized reform efforts, uplift was expressed as a distinctly intraracial endeavor. That is, rather than overtly leveraging the dominant white society to enact legal or political reforms, uplift typically centered on the ways in which African Americans could enhance the quality of black life independent from white involvement.

Understood as public proposals for how African Americans could employ forms of self-help to …

Grassroots And Community Activism Within Milwaukee's Black Community: A Response To Central City Renewal And Revitalization Efforts In The Walnut Street Area, 1960s To 1980s, Madeline Mary Riordan

Theses and Dissertations

Many researchers and scholars have explored the Black urban experience and have often chosen to focus on the systemic and institutionalized forms of racism that affect different aspects of Black lives. Descriptions of central city lives as told by Black central city residents are starkly similar to the descriptions of Black residents of industrialized cities throughout the United States. Fragments of the Black urban experience are contained in discussions of the effects of urban renewal efforts, including “redevelopment” and “revitalization,” beginning most heavily in the 1940s. Looking back at urban renewal designs and strategies from the 1940s through the 1980s …

William Grant Still And The Balance Of Popular Vs. Classical: Pace & Handy, Black Swan, And Shuffle Along, Jacqueline Brellenthin

Theses and Dissertations

Although known for his classical compositions, the African American composer William Grant Still worked in the popular music market at Pace & Handy Music Publishing, Black Swan Records, and as an orchestrator and pit musician for the black musical, Shuffle Along. These are all early experiences that must be considered when discussing his later success in art and popular music and that can offer valuable insight for scholars. In order to understand these employment experiences, this thesis places Still in the cultural context of early-1920s New York. By examining the ideology of racial uplift and the African American entertainment scene …

Discriminating Tastes: How Advertisements Taught Consumerism And Race To Gilded Age Youths, Jaclyn Schultz

Theses and Dissertations

Commercial and social trends of the Gilded Age combined to give a unique and novel power to colorful advertising trade cards that were collected, exchanged, and preserved in scrapbooks by middle-class children living in the Northeast. These children were members of one of the earliest generations to grow up with mandatory co-educational schooling and to be part of a distinctive youth culture created through peer interactions. After 1876, advertising trade cards became ubiquitous and were a significant component of that peer culture. The cards were also innovative in that they were the first example of colored images to be made …

The Price Of Change: Historiographical, Fiscal, And Demographic Considerations Of The Milwaukee Movement, 1966, Jonathan Charles Bruce

Theses and Dissertations

The work presented in this thesis argues for a new schema with which to approach the civil rights literature. Arguments for the necessity of this new approach utilize Milwaukee as a case study, analyzing the texts considered canonical to the city and offering a critique that will begin to break away from a lionized individual in favor of an egalitarian approach to history, specifically through the use of non-traditional methods such as quantitative analysis. Perhaps most important to the literature, this thesis addresses a fundamental, long-ignored aspect of the Civil Rights Movement by analyzing fiscal realities that face a grassroots …

An Improvised World: Jazz And Community In Milwaukee, 1950-1970, Benjamin Barbera

Theses and Dissertations

This study looks at the history of jazz in Milwaukee between 1950 and 1970. During this period Milwaukee experienced a series of shifts that included a large migration of African Americans, urban renewal and expressway projects, and the early stages of deindustrialization. These changes had an impact on the jazz musicians, audience, and venues in Milwaukee such that the history of jazz during this period reflects the social, economic, and physical landscape of the city in transition.

This thesis fills two gaps in the scholarship on Milwaukee. First, it describes the history of jazz in Milwaukee in a more comprehensive …

The 1868 St. Landry Massacre: Reconstruction's Deadliest Episode Of Violence, Matthew Christensen

Theses and Dissertations

The St. Landry Massacre is representative of the pervasive violence and intimidation in the South during the 1868 presidential canvass and represented the deadliest incident of racial violence during the Reconstruction Era. Southern conservatives used large scale collective violence in 1868 as a method to gain political control and restore the antebellum racial hierarchy. From 1865-1868, these Southerners struggled against the federal government, carpetbaggers, and Southern black populations to gain this control, but had largely failed in their attempts. After the First Reconstruction Act of March, 1867 forced Southern governments to accept universal male suffrage, Southern conservatives utilized violence and …