African American Studies Commons^™

Black Autonomy As A Form Of Resistance And A Symbol Of Rebellion: A Comparative Study Of Robbins, Illinois, And Milwaukee Bronzeville (1920-1970), Nateya Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

Black towns and segregated Black neighborhoods are two examples of majority Black communities that were formed because of the racial discrimination African Americans faced. Previous research has examined majority Black communities from a deficit model; however, this paper highlights the assets of autonomy and resistance in two majority Black communities in the Midwest: Robbins, Illinois, and Milwaukee Bronzeville. This paper compares Robbins, Illinois, a Black town, and Milwaukee’s Bronzeville neighborhood, a segregated Black community, to answer the questions: How did African Americans in Robbins, Illinois, and Milwaukee Bronzeville use autonomous practices to navigate racial discrimination between 1920 and 1970? What …

About Private Tommie D. Smith Guy, Wac, Reinette F. Jones

Library Presentations

Tommie D. Smith [Guy], from Lexington, KY, was one of the three African American WACs who were beaten by the local police and charged with disorderly conduct for sitting in the white waiting area of the bus station in Elizabethtown, KY. The three WACs were with the 1550th Service Command Unit, WAC Section II. The three women were eventually found not guilty of any charges.

Panic At The Picture Show: Southern Movie Theatre Culture And The Struggle To Desegregate, Susannah L. Broun

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This paper explores the complex desegregation process of movie theatres in the southern United States. Building off of historiography that investigates regulations of postwar teenage sexuality and recent scholarly work that acknowledges the link between sexuality and civil rights, I argue that movie theatres had a uniquely delayed desegregation process due to perceived sexual intrigue of the dark, private theatre space. Through analysis of drive-in and hardtop theatres, censorship of on-screen content, and youth involvement in desegregation, I contend that anxieties of interracial intimacy and unsupervised teenage sexuality produced this especially prolonged integration process.

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 …

Original Intent: Brown Vs. Board Of Education, White Backlash, & The Enduring Power Of De Facto Segregation, Aaron Brand

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the factors and outcomes surrounding Brown v. Board of Education of 1954. The events that predated it and the resistance that followed determined the chain of consequences from this perceived victory over racial bias. The calculated and persistent backlash against integration obscured Brown’s intent of educational opportunity.

Crossing The 'Color Bar': African American Soldiers In Britain And Australia During The Second World War, Joseph A. Dickinson

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

During the Second World War, African American soldiers were stationed all over the world as part of the American war effort. During these deployments, African Americans encountered a number of white societies, such as those in Britain and Australia, which they generally interacted with cordially. Good relations between African American soldiers and the local white populations angered many white servicemembers, who saw the lack of Jim Crow style segregation as a threat to the racial status quo, and attempted to enforce segregation overseas themselves. These attempts were often resisted fiercely by African American soldiers and the local white populations, both …

For Civilization And Citizenship: Emancipation, Empire, And The Creation Of The Black Citizen-Soldier Tradition, Henry Ian Davis

Theses and Dissertations

For civilization and citizenship: emancipation, empire, and the creation of the black citizen-soldier tradition examines the origins and evolution of black military service and its relation to how black and white Americans understood citizenship from the Civil War Era to the First World War. This dissertation analyzes how different generations of black soldiers pursued full, civic citizenship through their military service and formed their own vision of citizenship rooted in military service and how the War Department sought to deal with the tensions created by a biracial Army. While it asserts that a separate, black citizen-soldier tradition linking service and …

“‘The Negro Had Been Run Over Long Enough By White Men, And It Was Time They Defend Themselves’: African-American Mutinies And The Long Emancipation, 1861-1974”, Scott F. Thompson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation analyzes racially motivated mutinies by black military servicemen from the Civil War to the Vietnam War. Resistance against white supremacy in the armed forces illustrates the commitment of generations of African Americans to a vision of freedom centered on bodily, familial, and socioeconomic autonomy. These mutinies thereby warrant the reframing of emancipation as a centuries’-long process rather than a single event confined to the 1860s. Subscribing to martial masculinity, black servicemen believed acting forcefully, and risking their lives or well-being as a result, offered the best path to earning their human rights. African-American sailors enjoyed the opportunities offered …

Everette Brown, Jacqueline, Mark Naison

Oral Histories

Interviewees: Jacqueline Everette Brown

Interviewers: Mark Naison

Date: August 2020

Summarized by Trystan Edwards

Jacqueline Everette Brown was born in the Bedstuy community of Brooklyn, New York. She fondly recollects her childhood as one of three girls in her family. Her mother and father migrated to New York from Georgia during the great migration in the late thirties. Brown and her family moved back to Georgia in the early 1950’s. It is during this time that she faced more overt racism, evidenced by her having to ride in the back of the bus. Nevertheless, Brown and her family quickly adjusted. …

Role Of Municipal Governance In Stabilizing Mature Inner Suburbs: A Study Of Five St. Louis Municipalities 1970-2015, Napoleon Williams Iii

Dissertations

This study explores the role of municipal governance in municipal-level stabilization of inner suburbs in St. Louis County, Missouri. The data, from 1970 to 2015, include a robust collection of official government archives collected from five municipalities in St. Louis County, historical documents, city-state-national statistical data, and related materials. Interviews of 25 stakeholders were conducted and data were analyzed based on the community power structure framework.

I outline five mature St. Louis inner suburbs’ evolution in municipal-level conditions from 1970 to 2015, and I detail the role each suburbs’ municipal governance played in the evolution of municipal-level conditions. I conclude, …

Law School News: Remembering John Lewis 07-18-2020, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Geographic Imaginaries Of Urban Spatial Segregation: A Case Study Of The West End Neighborhoods In Louisville, Kentucky., Amber Dock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to translate the framework of geographic imaginaries into an urban context in order to capture a narrative of how residents conceptualize and experience segregation. This framework is rooted in an investigation of local discourses as they exist within a specific social, political, and historical context. Institutionalized segregation and structural racism are the foundations on which the American urban context studied here was built upon. This study employs multiple methods, including contextualizing the study area, analyzing discursive content, and visualizing the results. The results of these analyses included empirically connecting concentrations of protected classes to …

San Antonio's Redlining And Segregation, Arnulfo Tovar

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2020

Segregation were evidently shown during the years of 1903-1925 within San Antonio and has a long and complex history of segregation and redlining. What my research will be consisting of is how the work of B.G. Irish and H.E. Dickinson from 1903-1925, as well as the work of Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) in the 1930’s contributed to the rise and expansion of redlining and segregation in San Antonio. Irish and Dickinson were two successful real estate developers, and they included racial covenants in their deeds, covenants that states that no African Americans or Mexicans could own, lease, rent property …

Black And White Notes: Segregation, Integration, And Urban Renewal Through Pittsburgh's Locals 60 And 471, Nathan Seeley

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores Pittsburgh’s Locals 60, 471, and 60-471 of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) from the late nineteenth century to the mid-1960s. Local 60 was founded in 1896 for white musicians and Local 471 in 1908 for black musicians. While other studies of the AFM take a “top-down” approach, this study examines these Locals from the “bottom-up.” In doing so, it re-examines the causal relationship between music/musicians and the social, political, and economic conditions intersecting with them. This dissertation is built upon seventy-two interviews conducted between former Local 471 members in the 1990s, photographs from Teenie Harris Collection …

Kasserian Injera: And How Are The Children? The Lived Experiences And Perceptions Of Participants, Black And White, Who Attended Both Segregated And Desegregated Schools, Sherman Whitfield

Theses and Dissertations from 2019

This study was guided by the following research question: What are the perceptions and experiences of participants, Black and White, who attended both segregated and desegregated schools? This phenomenological research study was conducted using two focus groups divided homogeneously into one Black focus group and one White focus group. The Black focus group consisted of three Black females and two Black males. The White focus group consisted of six White females. The findings related to the research revealed that the Black focus group and the White focus group looked at this phenomenon differently along racial lines. These former students actually …

The Segregation, Integration, And Resegregation Of High Schools In Jones County, Mississippi, Anna Morgan

Honors Theses

There have been numerous works on segregation and desegregation in Mississippi schools. However, much of that research focuses on schools that are in cities, not rural areas. Jones County, Mississippi, a once rural area in southern Mississippi, has had an extensive record of racial segregation in their schools. “The Segregation, Integration, and Resegregation of High Schools in Jones County, Mississippi” focuses on effects of the integration of Jones County High Schools. Jones County fought a desperate fight to continue to segregate its students. With the eventual external integration of the high schools came internal segregation, which had lasting effects on …

Moxley, Frank Otha, 1908-2004 (Mss 664), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 664. Personal and professional papers of Dr. Frank O. Moxley of Bowling Green, Kentucky, an educator, guidance counselor, coach, and prominent member of the city’s African American community. Includes projects and narratives related to Bowling Green’s African American heritage.

Navigating Rough Waters: Public Swimming Pools, Discrimination, And The Law, Steven N. Waller Ph.D., Jim Bemiller Jd

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

Historically, swimming pools have been a focal point of racial tension. Discrimination and segregation are inextricably tied to the history of public swimming usage in the United States. Pools are public spaces that are physically and visually intimate. History has revealed that both de jure (enacted through the law by the government) and de facto (occurs through social interaction) discrimination have contributed to segregatory practices in the United States. The purpose of this article is twofold: 1) to examine the social pattern of discrimination that has stymied the growth of swimming in communities of color in the United States; and …

Secrets On Morgan Hill: A Story Of An Unlikely Friendship Amid An Apartheid South, Camille Kleidysz-Ferreira

Master of Arts in American Studies Capstones

Introduction

The Burden of History and Fiction

“How much of the burden of history can fiction bear?” – Margaret Walker

Comprehensive historical research can often become the inspiration for art. The greatest pieces of historical fiction, are a result of years of historic scholarship before the creation of a compelling historical narrative or fiction piece. Through my two-year ethnographic study and collection of oral histories of the black community, surrounding the historic Bethel A.M.E. church in Acworth, Georgia, I was told a story about a friendship between two little girls who remained friends until the end of their lives. What …

Oral History With Karen Edwards-Hunter, Matthew R. Griffis

Oral History Archive

Karen Edwards-Hunter was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1950 and has lived most of her life there. Her father was a mail carrier and her mother, who was originally a homemaker, was later a Teacher’s Assistant at Perry Elementary School. Edwards-Hunter grew up on 15^th Street in the city’s Russell neighborhood and attended Perry Elementary School and Harvey C. Russell Junior High School when both were still segregated. She later attended Louisville Male High School before earning a B.A. in English at Eastern Kentucky University and the University of Louisville. She completed further studies at Bard College in New …

What I’M Reading: Harper Lee’S 2 Novels, Jerome A. Gilbert

Jerome A. Gilbert, Ph.D.

Last fall, shortly after it was published, I read Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, and this summer I reread her classic To Kill a Mockingbird. The controversy around Watchman intrigued me. I saw the differences in the books mainly as the change between the perspectives of the young Scout and the adult Scout (aka Jean Louise). Unlike some, I saw the Watchman as an honest book reflecting the complicated reality of white America in the Jim Crow era.

Oral History With Houston A. Baker, Matthew R. Griffis

Oral History Archive

Born in March of 1943, Houston Alfred Baker Jr. grew up in segregated Louisville. His mother was a schoolteacher; his father served as chief administrator of the city’s African-American hospital, the Red Cross Hospital, and had earned a master’s degree in hospital administration from Northwestern University on a Rockefeller fellowship. When Baker was a child, his family lived on Virginia Avenue, where Baker attended Virginia Avenue Elementary School. After his family moved to Broadway Street, Baker attended Western Elementary, later Western Junior High School, and then Male High School before leaving for Howard University in 1961. The family attended Grace …

Oral History With Maxine Turner, Matthew R. Griffis

Oral History Archive

Maxine Turner was born in 1940 in Holt, Alabama, and moved to Meridian, Mississippi when she was three years-old. After living in the George Reese Courts, Turner’s family moved to 34^th Avenue and 13^th Street in the northwest part of town. They attended St. Paul Methodist Episcopal Church, just across the street from the 13^th Street library.

Turner began using the library when she was in third grade, mostly for personal reading and to support her schooling. She attended several of Meridian’s segregated schools, including St. Joseph Catholic School, Meridian Baptist Seminary, Wechsler Junior High School and …

Civil Rights Gone Wrong: Racial Nostalgia, Historical Memory, And The Boston Busing Crisis In Contemporary Children’S Literature, Lynnell L. Thomas

American Studies Faculty Publication Series

On May 14, 2014, three white Boston city councilors refused to vote to approve a resolution honoring the sixtieth anniversary of Brown v. the Board of Education because, as one remarked, “I didn’t want to get into a debate regarding forced busing in Boston.” Against the recent national proliferation of celebrations of civil rights milestones and legislation, the controversy surrounding the fortieth anniversary of the court decision that mandated busing to desegregate Boston public schools speaks volumes about the historical memory of Boston’s civil rights movement. Two highly acclaimed contemporary works of children’s literature set during or inspired by Boston’s …

We Just Want My People Thriving: Hip Hop As A Catalyst For Social Change In St. Louis, Joel Pettus Iii

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

St. Louis, regularly listed as one of the most segregated cities in the United States, has long been a hotbed of racial tension. As a current resident of St. Louis County, and a former resident of a subsection of St. Louis County called Ferguson, I have witnessed the havoc a history of racism, segregation and violence can wreak on a community. The silver lining of such an environment is the resulting creative talent that focuses its efforts on chronicling its surroundings. In this case, local artists have sought to illustrate St. Louis’ complicated history and uncertain future. Since hip hop …

South Shore And Everyplace You Don't Belong, Gabe Bump

MFA Program for Poets & Writers Masters Theses Collection

South Shore and Everyplace You Don’t Belong tracks a young man, Claude, raised by his grandmother on Chicago’s South Side. We follow Claude as he experiences tropes familiar to young Chicagoans: segregation, gun violence, gang recruitment, death, police brutality, and crooked politics.

We also follow Claude though universal experiences familiar to all young persons: falling in love, social anxiety, making friends, losing friends, rebellion, and identity crises of all shapes and sizes.

We follow Claude as he experiences America as a young black man.

What I’M Reading: Harper Lee’S 2 Novels, Jerome A. Gilbert

President's Research and Writings

Last fall, shortly after it was published, I read Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, and this summer I reread her classic To Kill a Mockingbird. The controversy around Watchman intrigued me. I saw the differences in the books mainly as the change between the perspectives of the young Scout and the adult Scout (aka Jean Louise). Unlike some, I saw the Watchman as an honest book reflecting the complicated reality of white America in the Jim Crow era.

"Disreputable Houses Of Some Very Reputable Negroes": Paternalism And Segregation Of Colonial Williamsburg, Nora Ann Knight

Senior Projects Spring 2016

This project attempts to intertwine the intentionally separated narratives of the foundation of Colonial Williamsburg and the narrative of Williamsburg's black community.

Residential Segregation In Norfolk, Virginia: How The Federal Government Reinforced Racial Division In A Southern City, 1914-1959, Kevin Lang Ringelstein

History Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines how Norfolk, Virginia maintained residential segregation between the years 1914, when the city passed its first segregation ordinance, and 1959, when it received the All-America City Award for its massive slum clearance projects. By focusing on federal government initiatives in Norfolk, it shows that Norfolk’s leaders used the federal government’s assistance to map, analyze, and remove the city’s African American slums. Ultimately, it highlights the central role the federal government played in perpetuating residential segregation in Norfolk and how it opened a space for Norfolk’s leaders to act on their prejudice.

This thesis demonstrates that in the …

Selma Is America, Rashida Aluko-Roberts

SURGE

During my recent trip to Selma, Alabama, I was overwhelmed by the tangible evidence that blatant racism and segregation still exists. In a town where many had made great sacrifices to combat America’s racial injustices, it was disheartening to see how very little change had come to the town MLK described as the “most segregated” in America. [excerpt]