African American Studies Commons^™

Supporting Caste: The Origins Of Racism In Colonial Virginia, Patrick D. Anderson

Grand Valley Journal of History

In 17th century Virginia, lower class whites and blacks coordinated on multiple occasions to resist the power of the ruling class elites. By the late 19th century, white laborers viewed the newly freed slaves through racist precepts and the two groups clashed on a regular basis. The aim of this essay is to explain how the shift from racial solidarity to racial antagonism occurred. Racist ideology originated in the minds of the elites and they attempted to separate the restless lower class along racial lines, first, by legal reforms, second, by creating a separate class of enslaved blacks. Anti-black racism …

The African-American Struggle For Equality: Two Divergent Approaches, Steven Washington

Honors College Theses

This paper focuses on two leaders and how their divergent strategies for one goal led to them working together without actively coordinating their efforts. The research conducted in the paper is based primarily on the writings of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois. It examines their upbringing and their views on education, labor and voting rights.

Aa Ms 06 Home Is Where I Make It - Oral History Collection Finding Aid, Marieke Van Der Steenhoven

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

This oral history project was directed by Dr. Maureen Elgersman Lee, of USM, and Rachel Talbot Ross. The interviews were conducted by local high school students. The Collection includes transcripts, photographs and audiotapes from the two phases of the project, which documented African American life in the Greater Portland and Lewiston-Auburn areas.

Date Range:

2001-2003

Size of Collection:

1 ft.

Attica State Correctional Facility: The Causes And Fallout Of The Riot Of 1971, Kathleen E. Slade

The Exposition

Everyone has heard the rallying cry “Attica! Attica!” These are words shouted in protest by many in the 1970s including John Lennon in his song “Attica State” in 1971 and Al Pacino in the movie “Dog day Afternoon” in 1975. But what happened at Attica State Correctional Facility in the rural town of Attica, NY in 1971 to cause the bloodiest day in American history up to that time? A prison built to be escape proof and virtually riot proof in 1931 exploded just forty years later in a violent four day riot that ended in a bloody massacre of …

How Is The Most Segregated City In The Country Addressing Disproportionate Minority Contact With A Juvenile Burglary Restorative Justice Program And What Implications Exist For Community Based Restorative Circles? : Conflict Analysis And Recommendations, Lauren Thrift

Capstone Collection

Milwaukee, Wisconsin is considered the most segregated city in the country and has the most disproportionate rate of minorities in Wisconsin’s juvenile justice system. The State of Wisconsin recognizes disproportionate minority contact (DMC) is a product of both differential offending by minorities and the racist differential processing by the juvenile justice system. Milwaukee’s residents are locked in a conflict about the role of racism in the high rates of minority crime and whether to address DMC with more stringent punishment or increasing alternatives to incarceration. The entrenched segregation between African American and Caucasian neighborhoods and social groups reinforces polarization, increasing …

Preface To Singing In A Strange Land, Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

Salvatore delves into the life of the one of the most influential clergyman in twentieth-century African-American religious life, from his 1915 origins as a poor Mississippi farmboy to his early years as a preacher in Tennessee to his 1950s rise to acclaim in Detroit. Along the way, Franklin's charismatic preaching style revolutionized the sermon yet he was no saint away from the pulpit. His encouragement to proclaim both faith and dignity in the black community helped bolster the civil rights movement.

[Review Of The Book William Johnson’S Natchez: The Ante-Bellum Diary Of A Free Negro], Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] To raise this issue of Johnson's silences and social isolation is not to engage in historical pity. He made choices from the options available to him and suffered the consequences as they developed. But his history underscores the fact that slavery generated a corresponding social system that was unforgiving to the individual caught in its contradictory currents. As Michael P. Johnson and James L. Roark suggest in Black Masters, their sensitive study of another slave owner and ex-slave, William Ellison of South Carolina, a purely personal solution to such volatile social relations proved impossible. What bound William Johnson to …

To Make A Better World Tomorrow: St. Clair Drake And The Quakers Of Pendle Hill, Andrew Rosa

History Faculty Publications

This article is part of a larger project by the author to record St. Clair Drake’s contribution to the black radical tradition. Here he examines Drake’s involvement with the Quakers in the early years of the Depression. Drawing on writings in African American and Popular Front periodicals of the time, it considers how a Quaker community shaped Drake’s identity as an intellectual activist and how his encounter suggests the ways in which black intellectuals engaged with non-violence as a philosophy and strategy for social change before he civil rights movement. Drake’s participation in non-violent campaigns for workers’ rights, world peace …

A Company Of Shadows: Slaves And Poor Free Menial Laborers In Cumberland County, Maine, 1760 – 1775, Charles P.M. Outwin

Maine History

Although slaves and poor, free menial laborers were by no means a majority of the population in late colonial-era Maine, they represented a culturally and socioeconomically significant part of commercial society there, especially at Falmouth in Casco Bay (now Portland) and in coastal Cumberland County. This essay uncovers the lives of the Falmouth’s small slave population and its larger poor menial laborer population from 1760 up to the port city’s destruction by the British in 1775. The author was granted a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maine in 2009. He is a member of the Maine Historical Society, …

A People's History Of Baseball, Mitchell J. Nathanson

Mitchell J Nathanson

Baseball is much more than the national pastime. It has become an emblem of America itself. From its initial popularity in the mid-nineteenth century, the game has reflected national values and beliefs and promoted what it means to be an American. Stories abound that illustrate baseball's significance in eradicating racial barriers, bringing neighborhoods together, building civic pride, and creating on the field of play an instructive civics lesson for immigrants on the national character. In A People's History of Baseball, Mitchell Nathanson probes the less well-known but no less meaningful other side of baseball: episodes not involving equality, patriotism, heroism, …

First Step Toward Freedom: Women In Contraband Camps In And Around The District Of Columbia During The Civil War, Lauren H. Roedner

Student Publications

A white Quaker abolitionist woman from Rochester, New York was not a likely sight in occupied Alexandria, Virginia during the Civil War where violence, suffering, death and racial inequality were rampant just south of the nation’s capital. Julia Wilbur was used to a comfortable home, her loving family, an enjoyable profession as a teacher, and the familiar comfort of many, often like-minded, friends. However instead of continuing that “easy” life, Julia embarked on a great adventure as a missionary to work with “contrabands-of-war”. More commonly known as fugitive slaves, these refugees needed shelter, medicine, food, clothes, and many other necessities …

Study Guide For United In Anger: A History Of Act Up, Matt Brim

Open Educational Resources

The United in Anger Study Guide facilitates classroom and activist engagement with Jim Hubbard’s 2012 documentary, United in Anger: A History of ACT UP. The Study Guide contains discussion sections, projects and exercises, and resources for further research about the activism of the New York chapter of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). The Study Guide is a free, interactive, multimedia resource for understanding the legacy of ACT UP, the film’s role in preserving that legacy, and its meaning for viewers' lives.

Interview Of Minister Rodney Muhammad, Rodney Muhammad, Venold Johnson

All Oral Histories

Minister Rodney Muhammad (born Rodney Ellis) was born in 1952 in Chicago, Illinois, where he grew up in the South Shore neighborhood. His father, Jim Ellis, played football for Michigan State University, graduated from there with a degree in sociology, played for the Chicago Bears, and was a social worker. His mother, Kathryn Ellis, attended Roosevelt University, was the first black model for Ford in Detroit, Michigan, and achieved a Ph.D. in Public Administration. Rodney Muhammad majored in business administration at DePaul University and worked as an estate planner before he entered the Nation of Islam. At the time of …

"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 …

The Roots And Routes Of "Imperium In Imperio": St. Clair Drake, The Formative Years, Andrew Rosa

History Faculty Publications

Marking the centenary of St. Clair Drake's birth, this examination begins the project of recovering one of the most underrated minds of the twentieth century by situating him within the community(s) that initially served to form him. Illustrative of the social theory of a black community outlined in Black Metropolis, Drake's lineage and formative years suggests that his was a cultural identity rooted in and routed through a series of racially constructed, semi-autonomous black life worlds, each held together by the collective desires of those made most vulnerable by the upheavals of capitalism and the caste-enforcing structures of segregation …

Remember The Fillmore: The Lingering History Of Urban Renewal In Black San Francisco, Christina Jackson, Nikki Jones

Africana Studies Faculty Publications

In the summer of 2008, I moved to San Francisco, California. I lived in the city for three months. As a researcher, my objective was to learn more about Mayor Gavin Newsome’s African-American Out-Migration Task Force. The Task Force convened in 2007 and met eight times from August to December. In 2009, the Mayor's office released a final report on the Redevelopment Agency's website that summarized the history of blacks in the city and outlined several recommendations for reversing their flight. The final report found that the political, economic, and social conditions of African-Americans are disproportionately more dire than any …