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Full-Text Articles in African American Studies

Analyzing The Relationship Between Aid Agencies And The Union Army In Civil War Arkansas From 1862 To 1865, Kimberly Green May 2023

Analyzing The Relationship Between Aid Agencies And The Union Army In Civil War Arkansas From 1862 To 1865, Kimberly Green

ATU Theses and Dissertations 2021 - Present

This thesis examines the administration of Arkansas’s contraband camps. The Union Army originally failed Black refugees in their quest for freedom as it was unprepared for the large number of African Americans seeking protection and guidance from the army. Arkansas historians have analyzed the effect the war had on the state as a whole and the operation of the Freedmen’s Bureau, but none of these works detail the various agencies that worked with federal authorities. This thesis follows the Western Sanitary Commission and the American Missionary Association as they assisted the federal government by providing supplies and forming partnerships with …


Forging Community In The Ouachita Foothills Of Southwest Arkansas: Duckett Township, Homesteading, Distilling And Race, Lisa C. Childs Dec 2022

Forging Community In The Ouachita Foothills Of Southwest Arkansas: Duckett Township, Homesteading, Distilling And Race, Lisa C. Childs

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Community was key to successful subsistence agriculture in Arkansas, especially in the Ouachita foothills in southwest Arkansas (including Polk, Howard, Montgomery, Pike, Garland Counties) and Oklahoma (McCurtain, Pittsburgh, LeFlore Counties) until the 1940s. Nearly a quarter of Arkansas’s land remained in the federal government’s name twenty years after statehood, and even more of the land in the western Ouachita foothills. Much remains unknown about how farming communities were formed in this area from the end of the Civil War until approximately World War II. As seen in the Duckett community in northern Howard County, while family connections were important to …


"I Am A Arkansas Man:" An Analysis Of African-American Masculinity In Antebellum Arkansas, Tye Boudra-Bland Apr 2021

"I Am A Arkansas Man:" An Analysis Of African-American Masculinity In Antebellum Arkansas, Tye Boudra-Bland

ATU Theses and Dissertations 2021 - Present

This thesis examines the experiences of African-American men in the years leading up to and through the American Civil War in order to understand how they constructed their own sense of manhood. Contemporary slave narratives and abolitionists’ expositions routinely tailored their definitions of manhood to white notions of gender in order to garner white support. Prominent abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass tailored their language of resistance against slavers to cast them as honorable martyrs as opposed to vengeful slaves so as to undermine racist caricatures of brute violence. But black southern men struggled against the confines of their bondage and …


The Shallow End Of The Deep South: Civil Rights Activism In Arkansas, 1865-1970, Sarah Riva Jul 2020

The Shallow End Of The Deep South: Civil Rights Activism In Arkansas, 1865-1970, Sarah Riva

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

On April 7, 1968, Governor Winthrop Rockefeller claimed that “Arkansas today stands at the threshold of leading the nation...for a better America,” The Republican Arkansas Governor spoke on the steps of the state capitol at a memorial for the beloved civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. who had been assassinated three days earlier. Rockefeller’s claim that Arkansas could lead the nation came just two years after the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formally ended its work in the state to improve racial equality. Their efforts had seen widespread acceptance of integrated public facilities, increased voter registration and more meaningful …


Letters Sent, Letters And Orders Received, Endorsements Sent And Received: 1865-1868, Bureau Of Refugees, Freedmen, And Abandoned Lands Apr 2018

Letters Sent, Letters And Orders Received, Endorsements Sent And Received: 1865-1868, Bureau Of Refugees, Freedmen, And Abandoned Lands

Freedmen's Bureau: Arkansas Field Office Records

No abstract provided.


The Peculiar Institution On The Periphery: Slavery In Arkansas, Kelly Eileene Jones Dec 2014

The Peculiar Institution On The Periphery: Slavery In Arkansas, Kelly Eileene Jones

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Slavery grew quickly on the western edge of the South. By 1860, more than one quarter of Arkansas's population was enslaved. While whites succeeded remarkably in transplanting the institution of slavery to the trans-Mississippi South, bondspeople used the land around them to achieve their own goals. Slaves capitalized on the abundance of uncultivated space, such as forest and canebrake, to temporarily escape the demanding crop routine, hold secret parties and religious meetings, meet friends, or run away for good. The Civil War created upheaval that undermined the slave regime but also required those African-Americans still in bondage to carefully navigate …


"It Was Awful, But It Was Politics": Crittenden County And The Demise Of African American Political Participation, Krista Michelle Jones Aug 2012

"It Was Awful, But It Was Politics": Crittenden County And The Demise Of African American Political Participation, Krista Michelle Jones

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite the vast scholarship that exists discussing why Democrats sought restrictive suffrage laws, little attention has been given by historians to examine how concern over local government drove disfranchisement measures. This study examines how the authors of disfranchisement laws were influenced by what was happening in Crittenden County where African Americans, because of their numerical majority, wielded enough political power to determine election outcomes. In the years following the Civil War, African Americans established strong communities, educated themselves, secured independent institutions, and most importantly became active in politics. Because of their numerical majority, Crittenden's African Americans were elected to county …


"The Africans Have Taken Arkansas": Political Activities Of African-American Members Of The Arkansas Legislature, 1868-73, Christopher Warren Branam May 2011

"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 …


A Demographic Approach To Race And Ethnicity In Metropolitan And Non-Metropolitan Regions Of Arkansas, 1990 And 1999, Todd W. Hodgson, Frank L. Farmer, Wayne P. Miller, Donald D. Voth Feb 2001

A Demographic Approach To Race And Ethnicity In Metropolitan And Non-Metropolitan Regions Of Arkansas, 1990 And 1999, Todd W. Hodgson, Frank L. Farmer, Wayne P. Miller, Donald D. Voth

Research Reports and Research Bulletins

This manuscript provides an empirical portrait of emergent trends in the growth, distribution, and racial and ethnic composition of Arkansas’ resident population. Particular attention is given to variation in the racial and ethnic composition of the estimated population among different regions of the state. During the 1990’s, racial and ethnic diversity increased statewide due in large part to Hispanic population growth in all regions. Black population growth was greatest in central Arkansas while Asian and Native American population growth increased most rapidly in the northwest metropolitan regions of the state. Overall, both metropolitan and non-metropolitan Arkansas communities have a more …


Slave Unrest In Arkansas, Carol Linville Dec 1974

Slave Unrest In Arkansas, Carol Linville

Honors Theses

Arkansas, unlike some slave holding states, was never the scene for actual mass uprisings or armed revolts by slaves. Actual acts of resistance and rumors of insurrections did occur in the state. The universal fear of insurrection that was present throughout the South also plagued the mind of the Arkansas slave owner. The fear was not new; since the beginning of slavery, the fear was present and as early as 1672, fear was expressed by the colonists of a slave uprising. Part of the fear was stemmed from conditions of slavery in Arkansas that were inducible to slave unrest.