African American Studies Commons^™

Psu Proposes Race Studies Mandate, Beverly Corbell, Ethan Johnson

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

New course requirements originating with the School of Gender, Race and Nations are being proposed in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Curriculum that can enrich the students’ learning experiences would be required of all undergraduate students, including two courses in race and ethnic studies. If passed, the added classes would also build support for the creation of conditions for a master’s degree program in the PSU School of Gender, Race and Nations. “We have a master’s certificate, but not a master’s program,” he said. Johnson says a vote for the proposal will help fulfill a Senate resolution to …

Blacks In Oregon, Darrell Millner

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Periodically, newspaper or magazine articles appear proclaiming amazement at how white the population of Oregon and the City of Portland is compared to other parts of the country. It is not possible to argue with the figures—in 2017, there were an estimated 91,000 Blacks in Oregon, about 2 percent of the population—but it is a profound mistake to think that these stories and statistics tell the story of the state's racial past. In fact, issues of race and the status and circumstances of Black life in Oregon are central to understanding the history of the state, and perhaps its future …

Rememory, Walidah Imarisha

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Short Story Summary

Set in a future world where those who believe in liberation have set up autonomous zones across the United States, teen Ayo contemplates her place in this society without prisons and police. While her chosen sibling Essakai is fighting to free more territories, Ayo decides to journey into the Rememory, the collective consciousness of past Black liberation movements, to find out what her role in creating these new just worlds should be.

Foreword to Black Freedom Beyond Borders: Memories of Abolition Day

There are times when our lived reality feels stranger than science fiction - a viral …

Housing Segregation And Resistance In Portland, Oregon, Carmen P. Thompson

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Local researchers Greta Smith, Melissa Cornelius Lang, and Leanne Serbulo gathered at the Oregon Historical Society in Portland, Oregon, for a public history roundtable discussion moderated by Carmen P. Thompson, adjunct professor of Black studies and African American History at Portland State University. Inspired by the fiftieth anniversary of the federal Fair Housing Act, these researchers have uncovered and analyzed new sources related to the history of housing segregation — and resistance to that discrimination — in Portland, Oregon. This is a record of that event.

Black Wax(Ing): On Gil Scott-Heron And The Walking Interlude, Derrais Carter

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

The film opens in an unidentified wax museum. The camera pans from right to left, zooming in on key Black historical figures who have been memorialized in wax. W.E.B. Du Bois, Marian Anderson, Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, and Duke Ellington stand out. The final wax figure, a Black man, sits with an empty card box in his right hand and a lit cigarette in his left. The film’s narrator appears: a slim, afroed Black man. He sits to the right of the figure. The only living person in a room full of bodies, he reaches over to grab the …

Alarmed By Trump: Professor Sees Parallels To Era Of Martin Luther King Jr., Shirley A. Jackson

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Black Americans And The South African Anti-Apartheid Campaign In Portland, Oregon, Ethan Johnson

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper argues that in order to understand the anti-Apartheid campaign in Portland, Oregon it must be located within the particular socio-historical context of race and racism in the city and state. Thus, Black people living in Portland had good reason to compare the Apartheid system in South Africa to their own experience. Therefore, the confluence of national and local issues that move the local anti-Apartheid campaign forward is examined; the paper documents the rise and development of critical organizations in the anti-Apartheid campaign in Portland; the paper focus on the closure of the Honorary South Africa Consulate in downtown …

Playing With History: A Black Camera Interview With Kevin Willmott, Derrais Carter

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

The George Bernard Shaw quotation in the epigraph is both a charge and a warning. Truth is a bitter pill best taken with syrup. Failure to comply could result in the truth-teller’s figurative death. In the case of the black filmmaker, that death looks like empty theater seats. It is a film with no audience, no home. The Shaw quote opens Kevin Willmott’s 2004 film C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America. The film is a mockumentary about what the United States would have become had the South won the Civil War. Using satire to poke fun at a seemingly ludicrous …

Afro-Ecuadorian Educational Movement: Racial Oppression, Its Origins And Oral Tradition, Ethan Johnson

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this paper, three objectives are presented, first, to describe the socio-historical context of Afro-Ecuadorians generally and specifically related to education. Here, it is demonstrated how colonial and nation building practices and processes have attempted to silence and make absent the contributions people of African descent have made to development of the nation. Second, the Afro-Ecuadorian social movement is considered within the local, regional and global socio-historical context, and it is argued that the Afro-Ecuadorian Etnoeducación is part of a continuous struggle for freedom and inclusion in the nation as full citizens. The third area of analysis focuses on one …

York Of The Corps Of Discovery, Darrell Millner

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Assesses the scholarship dealing with York, William Clark's slave, who was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Two schools of writing developed regarding York. The "Sambo" school dominated his depiction for almost two centuries and publications at the turn of the 21st century still saw York in racist terms, as a slave grateful for his status. At the other extreme is the "superhero" school that describes York in heroic terms, rescuing Clark from peril, fluent in French, tall in height. Both schools are grounded in stereotypes and poor scholarship. The best source for establishing a historically accurate York …

Book Review Of, Obed Dickinson's War Against Sin In Salem, 1853-1867, Darrell Millner

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reviews the book, "Obed Dickinson's War against Sin in Salem, 1853-1867" by Egbert S. Oliver

George Bush Of Tumwater: Founder Of The First American Colony On Puget Sound, Darrell Millner

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

A biography of pioneer George Washington Bush is presented. A free mulatto, information on Bush's childhood and birth date are uncertain. Believed to have been raised in Pennsylvania and educated under Quaker influence, Bush was literate and worked in the cattle business before moving to Oregon with his wife and children in 1844. Bush encountered various forms of racism, but was not deterred by pioneer life and by 1850 the family farm in the Tumwater, Washington area was thriving.

Book Review Of, The Invisible Empire In The West: Toward A New Historical Appraisal Of The Ku Klux Klan Of The 1920s, Darrell Millner

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reviews the book "The Invisible Empire in the West: Toward a New Historical Appraisal of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s" by Shawn Lay

Book Review Of, As The Wind Rocks The Wagon, Darrell Millner

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reviews the book, "As the Wind Rocks the Wagon" by Amy Warner