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Full-Text Articles in African American Studies

The Philadelphia Catto: Bridging The Racial Gap In The City Of Brotherly Love, Rachel Wyman Jun 2016

The Philadelphia Catto: Bridging The Racial Gap In The City Of Brotherly Love, Rachel Wyman

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to examine African American activist Octavius Valentine Catto's social and civic contributions to the African American community in Philadelphia and the nation during the Reconstruction era. Catto's militancy, courage, and devotion to the black cause, as a result of major religious and secular revolutionary ideology, offers an alternative view of the black experience in the North which was overshadowed by the myriad of research on Reconstruction in the South. Octavius Catto is part of a long tradition of black activists who led a wave of antislavery reform rooted in the secular political ideology of the American Revolution, …


A Critical Study Of The African-American Comedic Tradition, Allison Longo Jun 2016

A Critical Study Of The African-American Comedic Tradition, Allison Longo

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the changes in African-American comedy during the 1980s. In exploring the changes during this decade, specific attention is paid to Eddie Murphy, who achieved incredible success beginning with his 1980 entrance on Saturday Night Live. In a relatively short period of time, Murphy was able to ascend to a level of cultural significance that far dwarfed that reached by any of the African American comedians who had preceded him. Through a comprehensive presentation of the historical development of African American humor, the following thesis challenges the consensus critical assumption that Murphy both consciously forewent opportunities to be …