African American Studies Commons^™

Leeland Jones And Claude Clapp: Case Studies Of Civil Rights In Western New York, Kaelynn Beckman

History Theses

The Civil Rights Movement, which occurred primarily in the 1950s and 1960s, aimed to acquire justice, equality, and an end to racism and discrimination against Black Americans. In an attempt to do so, Black activists staged protests, walkouts, and boycotts and turned to institutions of education and politics to usher in change. However, the historiography on the Civil Rights Movement focuses on the more prominent events and individuals of the time, for example, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The missing components of the historiography include the …

Marietta J. Tanner, Mark Naison

Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP)

Interviewee: Marietta J. Tanner

Interviewers: Mark Naison, Donna Joseph, Saudah Muhammad

Date: July 2020

Summarized by Sophia Maier

Marietta J. Tanner was born in 1928 in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. Influenced by the activism of her father and the wartime experiences of her uncle, Marietta is a life-long political activist. Her parents explained to her from a young age their experiences in Jim Crow era Pennsylvania and by the age of six she was passing out political pamphlets and registering people to vote with the rest of her family. After attending a segregated school in her youth and a brief period …

The Forgotten Activists Of Georgia: The Black Women Of Savannah, Emily Zanieski

Honors College Theses

Historians of the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia have primarily focused on how the national movement unfolded in the city of Atlanta. More recent scholarship has highlighted the role Martin Luther King Jr. played in Albany; however, many of these analyses focus on figures within the larger movement rather than focusing on local, grassroots organizers. Additionally, their primary focus tends to be on the role of Black men, leaving behind the voices of Black women who led alongside them. Through a Long Civil Rights Movement (LCRM) approach, I argue that Black women in Savannah, Georgia played an instrumental role in …

Religious Racial Socialization: The Approach Of A Black Pastor At An Historic Black Baptist Church In Orange County, California, Shandell S. Maxwell

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This case study explored and developed the religious racial socialization (RRS) approach of a Black Baptist pastor in Orange County, California. The aim was to assess how the pastor’s direct messages about race influenced and transformed members’ racial and social views and actions and examined the message alignment between what the pastor said and what church members and the leadership team heard. This study took a multimethod exploratory approach, examining multiple sources of data gathered from a Likert scale members’ survey, leadership team interviews, and archival materials. To support triangulation of the data, a word query and emergent thematic analysis …

Resistance And The Black Freedom Movement: Reflections On White’S Freedom Farmers, Garrett Graddy-Lovelace, Priscilla Mccutcheon, Ashanté Reese, Angela Babb, Jonathan C. Hall, Eric Sarmiento, Bradley Wilson

Geography Faculty Publications

First paragraphs:

Landmark: 1. An object or feature of a landscape . . . that is easily seen and recognized from a distance, especially one that enables someone to establish their location. Synonyms: mark, indicator, guiding light, signal, beacon, lodestar. 2. An event or discovery marking an important stage or turning point in something. Synonyms: milestone, watershed . . . major achievement. (“Landmark,” n.d., para. 1 & 4)

Dr. Monica White’s Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement stands literally as a landmark, ushering in a new era of community-based scholarship with and for agrarian justice. From here …

Aa Ms 01 Gerald E. Talbot Collection Finding Aid, David Andreasen, Kristin D. Morris, Karin A. France, Marieke Van Der Steenhoven, Caroline Remley, Andrea Harkins, Kara Kralik, Anya O'Meara

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

Gerald E. Talbot was the first African American to be elected to the Maine State Legislature. He served in the Maine House of Representatives from 1972 to 1978, and worked with the Maine chapter of the NAACP and the State Board of Education. He also took part in the struggle for civil rights in other parts of the country, as well as in Maine. The Collection includes Talbot’s personal papers, records of his term in the Maine House of Representatives, of his work with the NAACP in Maine and with the State Board of Education. The Collection contains books, …

0859: Mr. And Mrs. Paul R. Cooley Sr. Civil Rights Era Newspaper Collection, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

This collection contains six newspapers from West Virginia, Virginia, and New York documenting historic events that occurred during the Civil Rights Movement, specifically during the March on Washington on August 29, 1963 and the events that occurred after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968.

Silence As A Strategy, Jarvis L. Steele

Honors College Theses

Understanding the struggle that is peaceful protest is a task that has two unexplored components. The first is how leaders of political movements and protest groups are able to influence the masses to not waiver in their non-violent, peaceful approach. The second is how political groups learn from the failures and successes of the previous campaigns. We are given these circumstances where governmental violence and abuse would normally lead to a retaliatory response from groups, but in order to maintain the fidelity of the movement leaders of these political protests have to protect the nonviolent approach. These are instances where …

The Legacy Of Slavery And The Continued Marginalization Of Communities Of Color Within The Legal System, Julia N. Alvarez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aim of this thesis paper is to demonstrate how the history of slavery in the United States continues to marginalize communities of color. The history of slavery in America was the result of various factors. Some of these factors included but were not limited to; economic, legal, and social. Slavery provided a reliable and self-reproducing workforce. The laws enacted during slavery ensured the continuation of the social order of the time. This social order was based on the generalized understanding that blacks were born into servitude. Those born into slavery were not given the same legal or economic status …

Book Review - Working For Equality: The Narrative Of Harry Hudson, Kelly Ansley

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Carter, Lillie Mae (Bland), 1919-1982 (Mss 558), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 558. This collection documents native Kentuckian Lillie Mae (Bland) Carters’ work as a poet and public school teacher in Toledo, Ohio. It includes correspondence, publications, unpublished poems, and printed material pertinent to her educational career and achievements. Of particular note is a folder of letters and autographs from African American poet Langston Hughes.

The "Unfinished Work:" The Civil War Centennial And The Civil Rights Movement, Megan A. Sutter

Student Publications

The Civil War Centennial celebrations fell short of a great opportunity in which Americans could reflect on the legacy of the Civil War through the racial crisis erupting in their nation. Different groups exploited the Centennial for their own purposes, but only the African Americans and civil rights activists tried to emphasize the importance of emancipation and slavery to the memory of the war. Southerners asserted states’ rights in resistance to what they saw as a black rebellion in their area. Northerners reflected back on the theme of reconciliation, prevalent in the seventy-fifth anniversary of the war. Unfortunately, those who …

Smith, Carolyn & Jack, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Carolyn Smith was born in Metropolitan Hospital and lived in Harlem until around the age of 6 when she moved to the Melrose Housing Development in the early 1940’s. Her mother and a community of friends she grew up with in Hell’s Kitchen would all move around together. They moved around in Harlem a few times before settling in at Melrose. Carolyn discusses a common theme among those who grew up in this time of a sense of community where people in the neighborhood would watch others children. When they moved to Melrose it was a new housing project and …

A Half Century Later, We Need The Voting Rights Act More Than Ever, Jill Ogline Titus

Civil War Institute Faculty Publications

Two years ago, the Supreme Court determined that voter discrimination is a thing of the past. The Court's decision to gut the 1965 Voting Rights Act ensures that this summer's 50^thanniversary commemoration is an ironic one.

We needed the legislation in 1965, the Court argued in its 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down the formula that made the act enforceable, but we don't anymore. [excerpt]

Creating The Black California Dream: Virna Canson And The Black Freedom Struggle In The Golden State’S Capital, 1940-1988, Kendra M. Gage

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation examines the black struggle for racial equality in the Golden State’s capital from 1940-1988 and an integral leader of the movement, Virna Canson. Canson fought for nearly fifty years to dismantle discriminatory practices in housing, education, employment and worked to protect consumers. Her lifetime of activism reveals a different set of key issues people focused on at the grassroots level and shows how the fight for freedom in California differed from the South because the state’s discriminatory practices were harder to pinpoint. Her work and the larger black community’s activism in Sacramento also reveals how the black freedom …

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 …

The Thunder Of The Marching Men Of Joshua: Day 3, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

"Let us march on ballot boxes until the Wallaces of our nation tremble away in silence.... There is nothing wrong with marching in this sense.The Bible tells us that the mighty men of Joshua merely walked about the walled city of Jericho and the barriers to freedom came tumbling down." [excerpt]

Like An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Day 2, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

"They told us we wouldn’t get here. And there were those who said that we would get here only over their dead bodies, but all the world today knows that we are here and we are standing before the forces of power in the state of Alabama saying, 'We ain’t goin’ let nobody turn us around.'"

I met Edith today. We were walking down the road and Edith was with us. She didn't say much. She just sort of gurgled, dangling from a sling on her mother's chest. [excerpt]

Walking Through 1965 On An Alabama Highway: Day 1, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

"Outside in the backyards I had just passed other youngsters engaged in their game 'State Trooper' in which half the number lined up locked arms, and proceeded to march singing 'We Shall Overcome,' then were set upon and beat down by the others wielding sticks and branches. In situations like these, one must observe the tragedy: that the misdeeds of our immature society are imprinted in the minds of innocent children."

Carl Benkert, Freedom Songs: Selma, Alabama, 1965

We were marching down the road. Seriously. We were marching down a rural Alabama highway. Hundreds of us. Marching. [excerpt …

Lancastrians Marched With Dr. King In Selma, Michael J. Birkner

History Faculty Publications

Fifty years after he addressed a crowd in Lancaster’s Penn Square about “the idea that all men are one,” Wayne Glick remembers that moment as if it happened yesterday. Glick’s speech, inviting Lancastrians to participate in the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, on behalf of African-American voting rights, is a footnote to Lancaster County history. But the march itself, featured in the popular film “Selma,” helped to change America. [excerpt]

Link Racial Past To The Present, Jill Ogline Titus

Civil War Institute Faculty Publications

Americans have been putting a great deal of energy into commemorating the 50th anniversary of some of the key moments of the civil rights movement. This burst of memorialization has inspired one new museum in Atlanta and the redesign of another in Memphis. The Smithsonian and Library of Congress are launching a new oral-history initiative, and films like Selma bring the movement to life for those who rarely read a history book or visit a museum.

This year brings more anniversaries: the Selma-to-Montgomery March, the passage of the Voting Rights Act, and the Watts rebellion. And the commemorative stakes are …

African American Women Leaders In The Civil Rights Movement: A Narrative Inquiry, Janet Dewart Bell

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this study is to give recognition to and lift up the voices of African American women leaders in the Civil Rights Movement. African American women were active leaders at all levels of the Civil Rights Movement, though the larger society, the civil rights establishment, and sometimes even the women themselves failed to acknowledge their significant leadership contributions. The recent and growing body of popular and nonacademic work on African American women leaders, which includes some leaders’ writings about their own experiences, often employs the terms “advocate” or “activist” rather than “leader.” In the academic literature, particularly on …

Musical Influence On Apartheid And The Civil Rights Movement, Katherine D. Power

Student Publications

Black South Africans and African Americans not only share similar identities, but also share similar historical struggles. Apartheid and the Civil Rights Movement were two movements on two separate continents in which black South Africans and African Americans resisted against deep injustice and defied oppression. This paper sets out to demonstrate the key role that music played, through factors of globalization, in influencing mass resistance and raising global awareness. As an elemental form of creative expression, music enables many of the vital tools needed to overcome hatred and violence. Jazz and Freedom songs were two of the most influential genres, …

I'Ve Seen The Promised Land: A Letter To Amelia Boynton Robinson, Mauricio E. Novoa

SURGE

You asked if I had any thoughts or comments at the end of our visit, and I stood and said nothing. I opened my mouth, but instead of giving you words my throat was sealed by a dam of speechlessness while my eyes wept out all the emotions and heartache that I wanted to share with you. The others in my group were able to express their admiration, so I wanted to do the same. [excerpt]

The Price Of Change: Historiographical, Fiscal, And Demographic Considerations Of The Milwaukee Movement, 1966, Jonathan Charles Bruce

Theses and Dissertations

The work presented in this thesis argues for a new schema with which to approach the civil rights literature. Arguments for the necessity of this new approach utilize Milwaukee as a case study, analyzing the texts considered canonical to the city and offering a critique that will begin to break away from a lionized individual in favor of an egalitarian approach to history, specifically through the use of non-traditional methods such as quantitative analysis. Perhaps most important to the literature, this thesis addresses a fundamental, long-ignored aspect of the Civil Rights Movement by analyzing fiscal realities that face a grassroots …

Strive And Struggle: Documenting The Civil Rights Movement At Cal Poly, 1967-1975, Josh Harmon, Laura Sorvetti, Catherine Trujillo

Creative Works

“Strive and Struggle: Documenting the Civil Rights Movement at Cal Poly, 1967-1975,” pays tribute to the students, administration, and national civil rights leaders that brought about lasting changes to Cal Poly.

In collaboration with University Archives, Kennedy Library staff, Graphic Design student assistants, and History Department graduate students, the exhibition is presented through the pages of the campus newspaper, the Mustang Daily, and explores campus reactions, struggles and triumphs during the Civil Rights years, as well as the efforts to establish Ethnic Studies courses, recruit Black faculty, and combat racial prejudice on campus.

Though the peak of the Civil Rights …

Where We Stand: 1975-2011, Laura Sorvetti, Catherine Trujillo, Josh Harmon

Creative Works

Where We Stand is an extension of the 2009 exhibit Strive & Struggle: Documenting the Civil Rights Movement at Cal Poly, 1967 – 1975 and similarly draws from Mustang Daily articles, student club documents, and oral accounts to construct a brief history of African American advocacy on the Cal Poly campus from the Civil Rights Movement to the present day.

The exhibit documents the roles that student and faculty organizations played in building awareness of issues of diversity and identity on campus. Assessing their efforts reveals both what has changed since 1975 and what remains to be addressed on the …

Scott, John L., Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Reverend John L. Scott

Interviewer: Dr. Mark Naison

Date of Interview: March 3, 2006

Summarized by Sheina Ledesma

Reverend John L. Scott was a civil rights movement leader in the South and New York City. He has been the pastor of St. John’s Baptist Church in Harlem since the early 1970’s and remains a leader and community activist in the North Bronx where he has lived for the past thirty years. Reverend Scott was born in 1937 in a rural area of North Carolina called Delmar. He is one of six boys, including his twin brother, who were born …

The Albany Movement And The Origin Of Freedom Songs, Nicole Lenart

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

“We became visible.” This is how Bernice Johnson Reagon, a Civil Rights Movement worker, a member of the Freedom Singers, and the founder of Sweet Honey In The Rock explained how songs uplifted and inspired those blacks and whites who worked tirelessly for freedom throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s. Indeed, freedom songs in the movement gave participants the ability to stand up against their fears, express their hopes and desires, and unite the diverse range of people who participated in the movement. Reagon, now a history professor and music legend, grew up right outside of Albany, Georgia, where freedom songs …

Sogrue, Jim, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Jim Sogrue was an assistant pastor at St. Augustine’s Church in Morrisania, South Bronx from September 1957 until June of 1964. He was ordained in June of 1957, traveled to Puerto Rico to study Spanish and Spanish culture and upon returning was assigned to a Spanish mission in the Archdiocese of New York. Sogrue grew up in an Irish neighborhood on Wadsworth Avenue between 173^rd and 174^th in Washington Heights. He remembers forty families living in his apartment house and only one was not an Irish family. He did not know any black, Hispanic or Latino kids growing …