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Full-Text Articles in African American Studies
Foreword: Abolition Constitutionalism, Dorothy E. Roberts
Foreword: Abolition Constitutionalism, Dorothy E. Roberts
All Faculty Scholarship
In this Foreword, I make the case for an abolition constitutionalism that attends to the theorizing of prison abolitionists. In Part I, I provide a summary of prison abolition theory and highlight its foundational tenets that engage with the institution of slavery and its eradication. I discuss how abolition theorists view the current prison industrial complex as originating in, though distinct from, racialized chattel slavery and the racial capitalist regime that relied on and sustained it, and their movement as completing the “unfinished liberation” sought by slavery abolitionists in the past. Part II considers whether the U.S. Constitution is an …
Assessing Reconstruction: Did The South Undergo Revolutionary Change?, Lauren H. Sobotka
Assessing Reconstruction: Did The South Undergo Revolutionary Change?, Lauren H. Sobotka
Student Publications
With the end of the Civil War, came a number of unanswered questions Reconstruction would attempt to answer for the South. While the South underwent economic, political and social changes for a short period, old traditions continued to persist resulting in racist sentiment.
Black Radicals And Marxist Internationalism: From The Iwma To The Fourth International, 1864-1948, Charles R. Holm
Black Radicals And Marxist Internationalism: From The Iwma To The Fourth International, 1864-1948, Charles R. Holm
Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research
This project investigates historical relationships between Black Radicalism and Marxist internationalism from the mid-nineteenth through the first half of the twentieth century. It argues that contrary to scholarly accounts that emphasize Marxist Euro-centrism, or that theorize the incompatibility of “Black” and “Western” radical projects, Black Radicals helped shape and produce Marxist theory and political movements, developing theoretical and organizational innovations that drew on both Black Radical and Marxist traditions of internationalism. These innovations were produced through experiences of struggle within international political movements ranging from the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century to the early Pan-African movements and struggles …
'Dred Scott V. Sandford' Analysis, Sarah E. Roessler
'Dred Scott V. Sandford' Analysis, Sarah E. Roessler
Student Publications
The Scott v. Sandford decision will forever be known as a dark moment in America's history. The Supreme Court chose to rule on a controversial issue, and they made the wrong decision. Scott v. Sandford is an example of what can happen when the Court chooses to side with personal opinion instead of what is right.
Slaves To Contradictions: 13 Myths That Sustained Slavery, Wilson Huhn
Slaves To Contradictions: 13 Myths That Sustained Slavery, Wilson Huhn
Akron Law Faculty Publications
People have a fundamental need to think of themselves as “good people.” To achieve this we tell each other stories – we create myths – about ourselves and our society. These myths may be true or they may be false. The more discordant a myth is with reality, the more difficult it is to convince people to embrace it. In such cases to sustain the illusion of truth it may be necessary to develop an entire mythology – an integrated web of mutually supporting stories. This paper explores the system of myths that sustained the institution of slavery in the …
"Spectacular Opacities": The Hyers Sisters' Performances Of Respectability And Resistance, Jocelyn Buckner
"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 …
Hip Hop Is Dead: The Rhetoric Of Hip Hop, Kalyana Champlain
Hip Hop Is Dead: The Rhetoric Of Hip Hop, Kalyana Champlain
Senior Honors Projects
There is no doubt that Hip Hop has become a most influential international force. This animal has had many faces: two of these faces have been as a political tool as displayed by Public Enemy, and as a therapeutic release-- as I discovered while in AmeriCorps interning at AS220 for a program called Hip Hop 220, in which we took underprivileged youth and helped them to channel their energy through this art form. However, there is a dark side to this culture that includes extreme misogyny, self- sabotage, hatred, and an unhealthy obsession with status. As I reflected on these …
Understanding Emancipation: Lincoln's Proclamation And The Overthrow Of Slavery, Allen C. Guelzo
Understanding Emancipation: Lincoln's Proclamation And The Overthrow Of Slavery, Allen C. Guelzo
Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications
The most common trope that governs understanding of Abraham Lincoln and emancipation is that of progress. The variations on that trope are legion, and they include notions of Lincoln's journey toward emancipation, his growth in understanding the justice of emancipation, and his path to the Emancipation Proclamation. "Lincoln was," as Horace Greeley put it, "a growing man"; growing from a stance of moral indifference and ignorance at the time of his election in 1860 toward deep conviction about African American freedom by the time of the Emancipation Proclamation less than two years later. That was a generous sentiment, since it …