African American Studies Commons^™

Black Policemen In Jim Crow New Orleans, Vanessa Flores-Robert

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Although historians have done in-­‐depth researched on Black police in the South, before the Civil War and during Reconstruction, they seldom assess black policemen’s role in New Orleans between the Battle of Liberty Place and 1913. The men discussed here argue that despite the hardening racial attitudes in Post-­‐ Reconstruction South, in New Orleans opportunity still existed for Blacks to serve in positions of authority, perhaps a heritage of the city’s earlier tri-­‐partite racial order. The information obtained from primary sources such as police manuals, beat books, and newspapers, counters the widely held belief that African American presence in the …

Oscar James Dunn: A Case Study In Race & Politics In Reconstruction Louisiana, Brian Mitchell

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The study of African American Reconstruction leadership has presented a variety of unique challenges for modern historians who struggle to piece together the lives of men, who prior to the Civil War, had little political identity. The scant amounts of primary source data in regard to these leaders’ lives before the war, the destruction of many documents in regard to their leadership following the Reconstruction Era, and the treatment of these figures by historians prior to the Revisionist movement have left this body of extremely important political figures largely unexplored. This dissertation will examine the life of one of Louisiana’s …

The Operation Was Successful But The Patient Died: The Politics Of Crisis And Homelessness In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Evan Casper-Futterman

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

On July 4^th, 2007, a small group of housing activists set up a tent city encampment in a plaza adjacent to New Orleans City Hall. The action resulted in the creation of Homeless Pride, a small group of politicized Plaza residents. Six months later, hundreds of homeless people were moved from the park, and it was fenced off. Using archival videos, interviews, and news media, this thesis analyzes the opportunities and constraints that activists, service providers, and local officials faced in light of two intersecting and overlapping contexts. The first context is the immediate crisis of the levee …

Growing Up Gay In Black America: An Exploration Of The Coming Out Process Of Queer African American Youth, Demarquis Clarke

Marriage and Family Therapy - Dissertations

Although it is commonly acknowledged that homophobia and racial marginalization influence queer African American male youth, there is very little research to back up this belief. Due to the paucity of information for clinicians, families, and communities on the relational dynamics of queer African American male youth and their parents, queer African American male youth were interviewed to explore the ways in which they understand their experience of the disclosure process, paying particular attention to the interface between race and sexual orientation and relational dynamics. This exploratory, qualitative study examined data gathered in interviews with individual male youth that identified …

Exploring First Generation African American Graduate Students: Motivating Factors For Pursuing A Doctoral Degree, Stephanie G. Adams

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose for conducting the study was to examine the factors that motivate African-American first-generation students to pursue doctoral education at a four-year public university. There has been little research on the influence academic or non-academic factors have on first-generation graduate student motivation. Similarly, little research exists that explored how factors might vary by ethnicity. Based on the projected increase of post-baccalaureate enrollment each year (Aud, Hussar, Planty, Snyder, Bianco, Fox, Frohlich, Kemp, Drake, 2010), first-generation African-Americans will become more interested in attending graduate school. It is important to gain a better understanding of the factors and influences that impact …

"Is This The Fruit Of Freedom?" Black Civil War Veterans In Tennessee, Paul E. Coker

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the meaning of the Civil War in the South by examining the experience of Tennessee’s black Union army soldiers and veterans from the 1860s through the early twentieth century. Today historians almost reflexively agree that the black military experience took on an “ever larger meaning” in American society, but few scholars have given sustained attention to black soldiers’ lives in the postwar South. My dissertation finds that the black military experience profoundly disrupted Southern hierarchies and presented black men with unprecedented opportunities to elevate their political, economic, and social status; however, these aspirations rarely went uncontested. Nearly …

Willie Horton And The 1988 Presidential Campaign: A Tale Of Two Narratives, Jose Soba

African & African American Studies Senior Theses

On the morning of April 4, 1987, Maryland police apprehended a convict by the name of William R. Horton.¹ Horton was a Massachusetts inmate participating in the state's furlough program. Horton had received ten furloughs. On his tenth furlough, Horton failed to return to prison, instead heading to Maryland.² There, Horton assaulted a man by the name of Clifford Barnes, tying up Barnes in the basement of his home.³ When Barnes' fiancée Angela Miller arrived, Horton proceeded to assault the woman, raping her twice.⁴ Horton then fled the home in Barnes' Z28 Camaro, as was captured …

"Ain't No Stopping Us Now": The Fordham Business Improvement District And The Future Of The South Bronx, Fiorela Hamzaraj-Aliaj

African & African American Studies Senior Theses

When you first think of the Bronx throughout the 20^th, up to the 21^st century, what are the type of images that come to mind? Do you imagine The Bronx as a 1940's crime engulfed night, threatening businesses and wealthy merchants everywhere? Do you imagine a hazardous, toxic and drug infested environment during the 1970's, streets filled with hopeless youth wondering aimlessly into desolate buildings in search for cocaine? Or do you imagine a vibrant city full of penetrating, colorful cultures continuously filling up the open air with blasting music joyfully playing on a hot summer's day …

Portrait Of A Drug: Representations Of Crack In The New York Times, 1985-1995, Noel K. Wolfe

African & African American Studies Senior Theses

As an eleven-year-old, he tried alcohol; at twelve he smoked marijuana; and by sixteen he was stealing car radios to support his cocaine habit.¹ Over a four-month period he spent $4,000 on crack and cocaine.² This boy from Long Island was given a choice: jail or drug rehabilitation––he chose the latter.³ Janet, an 18 year old from Harlem, had a different choice. Janet found out she was pregnant around the same time that crack became more prevalent in her neighborhood.⁴ She quickly became a crack addict and her addiction continued even after the birth of her …

“A General State Of Terror”: The Enforcement Acts, The Ku Klux Klan, And The Struggle Over Education In The Post-Bellum South, Kathryn E. Murdock

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

An Exploratory Study: Perceptions Of Power Dynamics And Sexual Decision-Making Among College-Age African American Women, Latisha Oliver

Africana Studies Theses

This qualitative grounded study explores power dynamics and its influence on sexual decision-making amongst college-age African American women. The film All of Us was shown to eighteen African American women to understand how they perceive power dynamics and sexual decision-making. Taking place at Georgia State University‟s main campus in Atlanta, focus groups and one on one interviews were implemented. Much of the research being conducted theorize that the risk factors regarding HIV infection are related to risky sexual decision-making and lack of consistent condom use; however this study concluded that there is a relationship between sexual decision-making and gendered power …

From Mammy To Madea, And Examination Of The Behaviors Of Tyler Perry's Madea Character In Relation To The Mammy, Jezebel, And Sapphire Stereotypes, Nargis Fontaine

Africana Studies Theses

African-Americans have been portrayed in stereotypical entertainment roles since their arrival into American society. Before film and television were developed, minstrel and side-shows were the source of entertainment at African-American’s expense. Minstrel shows were performed by White individuals dressed to impersonate Blacks and behaved in a White inter-pretation of Black behavior (Pieterse, 1992, pg. 134). African American women in particular were portrayed in three primary stereotypical ways: the Mammy, the Jezebel, and the Sap-phire. This research examines the relationship between the stereotypes and these historical typecasts of African-American women are relevant to Black director Tyler Perry’s popular character Mabel Simmons, …

Toward A Philosophy Of Race In Education, Corey V Kittrell

Doctoral Dissertations

There is a tendency in education theory to place the focus on the consequences of racial hegemony (racism, Eurocentric education, low performance by racial minorities) and ignore that race is antecedent to these consequences. This dissertation explores the treatment of race within critical theory in education. I conduct a metaphysical analysis to examine the race concept as it emerges from the works of various critical theorists in education. This examination shows how some scholars affirm the scientifically discredited race concept by offering racial essentialist approaches for emancipatory education. I argue that one of consequences of these approaches is the further …

A River Runs Through It: Community Access To The Bronx River In Tremont And Hunts Point, Matthew Bodnar

African & African American Studies Senior Theses

Rivers that run through urban areas are often neglected and forgotten. This is because the primary services that they provide for major cities are transportation and shipping. Many urban waterways have become polluted as a result and fail to reach much of their potential. New York City's rivers and waterfronts are not typically a place were people seek recreation in the form of swimming or boating, except for a few places such as Coney Island, City Island, and Rockaway Beach. Other waterways that could be assets for their communities are also sometimes overlooked. After living in the Bronx three years, …

“'You Done Cheat Mose Out O' De Job, Anyways; We All Knows Dat'”: Faith Healing In The Fiction Of Kate Chopin, Karen Kel Roop

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1850, the half-way mark of the century in which the country itself would be broken in two, Kate Chopin was destined to bear witness to the many divisions that have distinguished the United States. Especially noticeable in the post-Reconstruction period in which she wrote was the expanding chasm between the races. This dissertation argues that even Chopin's most seemingly orthodox Southern stories betray a quest for a theology capable of healing the physical, emotional, and spiritual ills omnipresent in the country and especially apparent in the post-Civil War South. The alternative to mainstream Protestantism …

"Misplacement And A Side Of Stigma: The Treatment Of Esl And Special Need Students In A Bronx Middle School", Estefany Lopez

African & African American Studies Senior Theses

The public school educational system in New York City, especially in lower-income neighborhoods, has long been suffering form under funding and budget cuts which lead to important and vital programs being removed or merged, larger classroom sized and general downsizing of schools, including staff. Students of minority groups, Latinos as a focal point of this research, are often misplaced in programs or have certain needs neglected all together. The present study will attempt to demonstrate how this neglect is prevalent using George J. Werdan III, or PS MS 20 as a case study (an elementary school located in the Bronx)––with …

Finger Lickin’ Good: An Analytical Investigation Into The Urban Diet, Jennifer T.R. Tomlinson

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

In this analysis, the origins, customs and implications of fast-food culture will be explored with important focus on the customs of fast-food urban eating. Research indicates that lower-income urban areas are more likely to consume fast-food. The high consumption of fast-food subsequently results in the development of social and economical implications, which include health implications, economic dilemmas, a disconnection between consumers and their consumption and issues of social classification. This analysis also explores the customs of fast-food culture of Pine Hills, Florida with added emphasis on Pine Hills’ cultural uniqueness.

"The Africans Have Taken Arkansas": Political Activities Of African-American Members Of The Arkansas Legislature, 1868-73, Christopher Warren Branam

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

African-American lawmakers in the Arkansas General Assembly during Radical Reconstruction became politically active at a time when the legislature was addressing the most basic issues of public life, such as creating the infrastructure of public education and transportation in the state. They were actively engaged in the work of the legislature. Between 1868 and 1873, they introduced bills that eventually became laws. Arkansas passed two civil rights laws at the behest of African-American lawmakers. Education, law and order, and economic development--issues that reflected the southern Republican agenda that dominated the state's politics between 1868 and Democratic Redemption in 1874--also drew …

Recovery & Recognition: Black Women And The Lower Ninth Ward, Jamesia J. King

Africana Studies Theses

Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005 and drastically altered the city of New Orleans causing the most damage to minority and low socioeconomic status communities such as the Lower Ninth Ward. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, African American women in the New Orleans constituted the group most marginalized in society. Following Hurricane Katrina, several studies have explored Hurricane Katrina and disaster recovery in New Orleans. However, few studies have explored gender as it relates to natural disasters and recovery. Therefore, this study explores the experiences of African American women with disaster recovery in the Lower Ninth Ward.

True To The Game-Theory: A Game-Thoeretic Analysis Of Street Team By Joe Black, Jamie Feigenbaum

African & African American Studies Senior Theses

The title of this paper pays homage to the first Street Lit book I ever read: Terri Woods' novel, True to the Game. The title of the book raises the question, what is "the game"? And what does it mean to be "true" to it? In the first graduate-level class in America to read Street Lit as an academically worthy genre, my peers and I settled on several responses: "the game" was the crack-cocaine business, the hustle in general, or the ubiquitous exchanges between sex, money, and power; and to be "true" meant, as one classmate put it, "to keep …

Dispersion Or Re-Segregation: A Spatial And Temporal Analysis Of Public Policies And Their Impact On Urban African American Mobility, Brandi Lynette Blessett

Theses and Dissertations in Urban Studies

This study seeks to test Hirsch's second ghetto thesis in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. Hirsch suggested that the role of government, public policies, and administrative discretion were responsible for the re-segregation of African Americans into second ghetto communities in Chicago. Many scholars have used Hirsch's framework to explain ghetto formation. This investigation seeks to extend the literature in several ways. First, several national policies were investigated to determine their impact on African American mobility in Baltimore: the Housing Act of 1937 (public housing), the Housing Act of 1949 (urban renewal), and the Interstate Highway Act of 1956 (transportation). Second, …

The Relationship Between Functional Health Literacy Of African American Veterans And Nonveterans And Their Ability To Read And Comprehend Medical Information For A Chronic Illness, David Stephen Points

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if there were differences between male African Americans who have served in the military and those who are not veterans in their ability to read and comprehend medical information for a chronic illness prevalent among African Americans, such as type 2 diabetes. The participants included 92 African American men of whom 44 were veterans and 48 were nonveterans. The participants were drawn from fraternal organizations and churches in a large metropolitan area located in the Midwestern part of the United States. The Short Test of Health Literacy Assessment (STOFHLA), a knowledge questionnaire, …

Shakin' Exploitation: Black Female Bodies In Contemporary Hip-Hop And Pornography, Amber Walker

Honors Papers

Through a methodological framework consisting of historical analysis, pop culture analysis, and hip-hop feminist theory, this paper will explore the complex intersections of race, gender, and agency in contemporary hip-hop and adult entertainment.

The first section, "Look Back at Me: Jezebel, the Black Lady and Constructions of Black Female Sexuality Identity", will consist of a historical overview of images of Black women constructed since enslavement into the late 20th century and highlight the links between these stereotypes and the sexualized images that exist of Black female identity in contemporary hip-hop. The politics of respectability will also be discussed and how …

African American Student Retention In The Reserve Officer Training Corps (Rotc) Leadership Program, Elaine A. Edwards

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The percentage of qualified African American senior military leaders is significantly lower than the percentage of African Americans serving in the enlisted ranks. With the changing demographics of the 21st century, increasing the number of African American Army officers is a practical as well a moral issue. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to understand African American cadets' perception of the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) Leadership Program and the impact of ROTC on their lives. The theoretical basis for this study is Sternberg's theory of intelligence and Woodman, Sawyer, and Griffin's theory of organizational creativity. The …

M.O.M. Vs. Millionaires: The Fight For Equal Opportunities, Imani Edwards

African & African American Studies Senior Theses

Racial and social inequality is major influences on areas like the South Bronx that lack resources. It is especially important to know how race plays a role in the poor housing, employment, environmental, and public school conditions in the South Bronx and to what extent it does. Using Wilson's race-complex books, I will explain how over the years, direct racial inequality has been translated into social class inequality.

A Retrospective Population Based Cohort Study Examining The Black White Gap In Infant Mortality, Ina Marie Peoples

Presidential Alumni Research Dissemination Award

Black women in one US City have more than a 2-fold likelihood of experiencing a death in the womb or an infant death within the first year of life when compared to Whites. The purpose of this retrospective population based cohort study was to examine the unexplained high rates of Black fetal and infant (feto-infant) mortality in this city. The study was built on the perinatal periods of risk (PPOR) model. The PPOR model maps each death in a geographic region into four distinct periods of risk based on birth weight and age at death. The study relied upon 51,303 …

Detroit Blues Women, Michael Duggan Murphy

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

DETROIT BLUES WOMEN

by

Michael Duggan Murphy

August 2011

Advisor: Dr. John J. Bukowczyk

Major: History

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

"Detroit Blues Women" explores how African American "women's blues" survived the twentieth century relatively unscripted by the image-makers of the male-dominated music industry. In the 1920s, African American blues queens laid out a foundation for assertive and rebellious women's blues that the many musical heirs who succeeded them in the twentieth century and into the first decade of the twenty first century sustained, preserved and built upon. The dissertation argues that women's blues, which encouraged women to liberate themselves …

The Effects Of Racially-Motivated Emotional Arousal On The Eating Behaviors Of African American Women, Lenwood W. Hayman

Wayne State University Dissertations

Disparities between African Americans and Caucasians remain vast across a wide variety of health indicators. Chronic stress has been identified as a risk factor for a variety of chronic illnesses and poor health outcomes. One type of chronic stress that has been linked to health disparities is the stress associated with experiences of racial discrimination. The stress African Americans encounter as a result of their racist experiences contributes to a chronic elevation of their physiological stress response. In addition to stress, a major risk factor for coronary heart disease and diabetes is obesity, which has been established as a major …

Narrativizing Success : Attitudes Toward African American Vernacular English In The Composition Classroom, Christopher W. Diorio

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

My thesis analyzes academia’s response to African American Vernacular English (AAVE) features in academic writing and how teachers’ responses to AAVE writing create socially constructed personas for students based on their vernacular dialect features. The results show spoken language strongly influences written language, although the range of dialect use varies from single feature usage to use of multiple features, and occurrences of use are highly localized. While instances of AAVE in academic writing are irregular, instructor response to features shows a pattern of strikethroughs and imperative statements used to correct language. As studies demonstrate such approaches to writing have negligible …

Effects Of A Web-Based Decision Aid On African American Men's Prostate Screening Knowledge And Behavior, Beverly Layton

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

African American men have the highest prostate cancer occurrence and deaths of any population, yet many are unaware of screening opportunities or prognoses if diagnosed with the disease. The focus of this study was to learn whether a web-based prostate health education decision aid would increase prostate cancer knowledge, declared intention to be screened, and the likelihood of scheduling a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. The transtheoretical model of behavior change served as the theoretical framework for the study to assess readiness to adopt new behaviors. A total of 128 African American men between the ages of 40--65 without a history …