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Full-Text Articles in African American Studies
‘Posed With The Greatest Care’: Photographic Representations Of Black Women Employed By The Work Progress Administration In New Orleans, 1936-1941, Kathryn A. O'Dwyer
‘Posed With The Greatest Care’: Photographic Representations Of Black Women Employed By The Work Progress Administration In New Orleans, 1936-1941, Kathryn A. O'Dwyer
University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
For decades, scholars have debated the significance of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), emphasizing its political, economic, and artistic impact. This historiography is dominated by the accomplishments of white men. In an effort to highlight the long-neglected legions of black women who contributed to WPA projects and navigated the agency’s discriminatory practices, this paper will examine WPA operations in New Orleans where unemployment was the highest in the urban south, black women completed numerous large-scale projects, and white supremacist notions guided relief protocol. By analyzing the New Orleans WPA Photography collection, along with newspapers, government documents, and oral histories, a …
Playing His Own Game: Ernest 'Dutch' Morial's 1977 Mayoral Campaign For Citizen Participation In New Orleans, Eric Marshall
Playing His Own Game: Ernest 'Dutch' Morial's 1977 Mayoral Campaign For Citizen Participation In New Orleans, Eric Marshall
University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
Ernest “Dutch” Morial’s 1977 grassroots mayoral campaign disrupted the political status quo in New Orleans with his message of citizen participation. Morial’s citizen-driven campaign reached over the constituencies of established Black Political Organizations, capturing an eager audience with his message of political, social, and economic equality. With the help of volunteers and other community organizations, Morial created a grassroots campaign that focused on making city government more inclusive. Unattached to the traditional patronage structure, Mayor Morial empowered the black community, reducing the constraints of their political access. Although his legacy is difficult to discern in New Orleans current political realities, …
An Old Woman Bumped Her On Canal, Nordette N. Adams
An Old Woman Bumped Her On Canal, Nordette N. Adams
University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
This work is a collection of poems revolving around black or African-American identity and the intersection of feminist consciousness with racial struggle. An examination of the unknown or forgotten black woman runs through this work as well as connection to a mother figure. The poems also reflect the influence of place, particularly New Orleans, its history, its culture, and its present evolution post-Hurricane Katrina. The collection's preface includes development of a unique poetics that considers identity theories and models of the subject in light of poetic voice. The poems use caesura heavily, rhyme, and sonic echo. Poets who have influenced …
Broad Shoulders, Hidden Voices: The Legacy Of Integration At New Orleans' Benjamin Franklin High School, Graham S. Cooper
Broad Shoulders, Hidden Voices: The Legacy Of Integration At New Orleans' Benjamin Franklin High School, Graham S. Cooper
University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
This paper seeks to insert the voices of students into the historical discussion of public school integration in New Orleans. While history tends to ignore the memories of children that experienced integration firsthand, this paper argues that those memories can alter our understanding of that history. In 1963, Benjamin Franklin High School was the first public high school in New Orleans to integrate. Black students knowingly made sacrifices to transfer to Ben Franklin, as they were socially and politically conscious teenagers. Black students formed alliances with some white teachers and students to help combat the racist environment that still dominated …
"Listen To The Wild Discord": Jazz In The Chicago Defender And The Louisiana Weekly, 1925-1929, Sarah A. Waits
"Listen To The Wild Discord": Jazz In The Chicago Defender And The Louisiana Weekly, 1925-1929, Sarah A. Waits
University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
This essay will use the views of two African American newspaper columnists, E. Belfield Spriggins of the Louisiana Weekly and Dave Peyton of the Chicago Defender, to argue that though New Orleans and Chicago both occupied a primary place in the history of jazz, in many ways jazz was initially met with ambivalence and suspicion. The struggle between the desire to highlight black achievement in music and the effort to adhere to tenets of middle class respectability play out in their columns. Despite historiographical writings to the contrary, these issues of the influence of jazz music on society were …