Race and Ethnicity Commons^™

Bolling V. Sharpe And Beyond: The Unfinished And Untold History Of School Desegregation In Washington, D.C., Bryce Celotto

Honors College Theses

While the Brown V. Board of Education case is constantly referenced when discussing educational equity and desegregation, Bolling v. Sharpe stands as another important education civil rights case and is perhaps more telling of the story of education in the United States. Bolling V. Sharpe was argued and decided in the United States Supreme Court over the course of 1952 to 1954. Similar to Brown v. Board in terms of intent, Bolling v. Sharpe aimed to desegregate public schools in Washington, D.C. in order to give African-American students equal access to a high quality public education on par with that …

Cycling Historiography, Evidence, And Methods, Lorenz J. Finison

Boston’s Cycling Craze, 1880-1900: A Story of Race, Sport, and Society

My purpose in Boston’s Cycling Craze, 1880-1900, was to unearth a largely hidden social cycling history from the point of view of the ordinary, not the famous. While there were many Boston connections to racing champions like Major Taylor, Eddie McDuffee, and Nat Butler, and there are abundant sources of evidence about them, the research was not just about them, nor just about bicycle racing, nor just about unique or fast bikes. I wanted to write about what bicycling meant to ordinary citizens of Boston and its surrounding towns— and to write about the worsening social climate of the …

Studies On Religion And Recidivism: Focus On Roxbury, Dorchester, And Mattapan, George Walters-Sleyon

Trotter Review

This research article raises the question of whether religion can be considered a viable partner in the reduction of the high rate of recidivism associated with the increasing mass incarceration in the United States. Can sustainable transformation in the life of a prisoner or former prisoner as a result of religious conversion be subjected to evidenced-based practices to derive impartial conclusions about the value of religion in their lives? With a particular focus on three neighborhoods of Boston—Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan—this study examines the relevance of religion and faith-based organizations in lowering the high rate of recidivism associated with incarceration …

The Personal And Family Challenges Of Reentry: Interview With Helen Credle, Kenneth J. Cooper

Trotter Review

For 40 years, Helen Credle has worked with prison inmates and exoffenders in Massachusetts, from inside or outside the state corrections system. The Boston native, who grew up in Roxbury, did not set out to become an advocate for prisoners and their families. Oddly, it was music that first took her inside prison walls and into that role. As director of community services for the New England Conservatory of Music, Credle organized concerts by bluesman B.B. King and balladeer Bobby Womack in state prisons. Her involvement grew deeper when the conservatory’s administrators and faculty members decided to teach inmates to …

Gray Matters Behind Bars, Howard Manly

Trotter Review

Forty years ago, the nation got tough on crime. It is now paying the price as the skyrocketing cost of incarcerating aging inmates is haunting state and federal prison budgets.

Life After Prison: A Different Kind Of Sentence?, A Forum At The Boston Center For The Arts, Andrea J. Cabral, Daniel Cordon, Lyn Levy, Gary Little, Janet Rodriguez

Trotter Review

In September 2012, the Boston Center for the Arts (BCA) hosted a forum on life after prison as part of its series, Dialogue: Social Issues Examined Through the Playwright’s Pen. The forum coincided with performances at the Boston Center for the Arts of The MotherF**ker with the Hat, a play by Stephen Andy Guirgis about prisoner reentry.

Andrea J. Cabral, then sheriff of Suffolk County and secretary of public safety in Massachusetts, moderated the forum in BCA’s Calderwood Pavilion, the same theater where SpeakEasy Stage Company was putting on the play. The four panelists work for nonprofit organizations primarily …

Inside/Outside: A Model For Social Support And Rehabilitation Of Young Black Men, Harold Adams, Castellano Turner

Trotter Review

This paper first identifies some of the most important problems facing incarcerated young black males. Next, we present an historical analysis that pinpoints the War on Drugs as the primary origin of mass incarceration of that group. Then we describe the major consequences for prisoners as well as collateral problems for their families, friends, and communities. We then outline the types of programs created to address these problems. We summarize research that shows the key to solving high recidivism rates is social support during incarceration and after release. We describe in particular a Boston-based organization, the Committee of Friends and …

Stop And Frisk: From Slave-Catchers To Nypd, A Legal Commentary, Gloria J. Browne-Marshall

Trotter Review

Today’s “stop and frisk” practices stem from centuries of legal control of Africans in America. Colonial laws were drafted specifically to control Africans, enslaved and free. Slave catchers culled the woods in search of those Africans who dared escape. After slavery ended, “Black Codes” or criminal laws were enacted to ensnare African Americans, including the sinister convict-lease system that existed well into the twentieth century. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled to extend police authority to stop and frisk during the Civil Rights Movement.

Police abuse of stop and frisk has led to tens of millions of people detained and searched …

A Historical Overview Of Poverty Among Blacks In Boston, 1950-1990, Robert C. Hayden

Trotter Review

Like most nineteenth-century residents of Boston, blacks worked hard to maintain their homes and families. Even before the Civil War, both enslaved and free blacks in "freedom's birthplace" worked long and arduous hours. Those who migrated to Boston from the South in the 1800s had come to secure higher wages, mobility, and opportunity for themselves and their families. Boston's black population grew from 2,000 in 1850 to 8,125 in 1890, and to 11,591 by 1900. In 1900, 39 percent of black Bostonians were northern-born (New England, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania), and 53 percent were southern-born.

Residential segregation for …

Investigating The Heart Of A Community: Archaeological Excavations At The African Meeting House, Boston, Massachusetts, David B. Landon, Teresa Dujnic, Kate Descoteaux, Susan Jacobucci, Darios Felix, Marisa Patalano, Ryan Kennedy, Diana Gallagher, Ashley Peles, Jonathan Patton, Heather Trigg, Allison Bain, Cheryl Laroche

Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research Publications

In collaboration with the Museum of African American History, an archaeological research team from the University of Massachusetts Boston carried out a data recovery excavation at the African Meeting House on Beacon Hill. The African Meeting House was a powerful social institution for 19thcentury Boston’s free black community. The site played an important role in the abolition movement, the creation of educational opportunity, and other community action for social and political equality. The Meeting House was originally built in 1806, and renovations in preparation for the 2006 bi-centennial celebration prompted an investigation of areas of the property to be impacted …

Black Immigrant Community Of Washington, D.C.: A Public History Approach, Portia James

Trotter Review

In the Washington, D.C. area contemporary Black community life has been shaped in large part by a pattern of migration and settlement of African Americans from southern states. But international immigration has also made its mark on the local Black community. Today, Washington and its suburbs in Virginia and Maryland are home to significant populations of Black people from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This international movement of people has resulted in the broadening of Black community life and the development of a multicultural and multi-ethnic Black population in the area.

Puerto Rican Politics In The United States: A Preliminary Assessment, José E. Cruz

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article examines the following question: What characterizes Puerto Rican political development and what promise does electoral politics hold for Puerto Ricans in the United States? Its central premise is that an analytical framework which focuses on economic deprivation and racial prejudice is partial and inadequate to an understanding of the political experience of Puerto Ricans. Throughout the years, mainland Puerto Ricans have moved in and out of the political stage holding the banners of anti-colonialism, separatism, incorporation, and ethnic identity in search of vantage points from which they can satisfy their cultural, social, and economic needs. Despite the Airbus …

The African-American Urban Milieu And Economic Development, Lenneal J. Henderson

Trotter Review

Economic disparity between urban white America and urban black America is becoming more pronounced, whether in central cities, suburbs, or edge cities. African-American employment prospects have declined in central cities, increased slightly in suburbs, and increased substantially for the few African Americans living and working in edge cities. William Julius Wilson cites the decline in stable, higher-paying, blue-collar employment in the industrial cities throughout America. Others identify the changing structure of metropolitan employment as characterized by more rapid professional and white-collar employment growth in suburbs and edge cities and declining employment in central cities. In his book, Cities Without Suburbs …

Revisiting The Question Of Reparations, James Jennings

Trotter Review

Recent congressional action to award Japanese Americans "reparations" for their internment during World War II, as well as the Florida state legislature's act to award $150,000 to black survivors of a white riot rampage of Rosewood, a black town, in 1923, has contributed to a re-emergence of the call for black reparations. Several black state and local politicians and leaders across the United States have called for legislative action that would compensate blacks for three and one half centuries of racial enslavement. The awarding of reparations to Japanese Americans is not the only precedent for indemnity to a group of …

The African-American Business Tradition In Boston, Robert C. Hayden

Trotter Review

African Americans in Boston have been exhibiting their interest and talents in business for a long time. Those in business today are continuing a tradition that goes back to the African culture of preslavery days. Enslaved Africans who were brought to America came from a business tradition, from a culture of great traders, merchants, and craftsmen. Many enslaved blacks, in fact, purchased their freedom by marketing their skilled services and handmade products.

Preface, James Jennings

Trotter Review

It gives me great pleasure to be part of the publication of this special issue on blacks in the U.S. military. Blacks in America have sacrificed their lives in all of the wars involving the U.S. at the same time that they have struggled for social and racial justice at home. Unfortunately, pervasive myths about the military sacrifices and valor of blacks in this country continue to be held by many Americans. It is also sad that too many blacks find that the military may be the only channel available to them for the realization of social and economic mobility. …

Introduction, William King

Trotter Review

Bloods. Brothers. The Griot. Vietnam Blues. Black Bitches Dancing With Charlie. These titles, and numerous articles, essays, poems, government reports, films, and related items, describe and detail various aspects of the black experience of the American war in Vietnam, the situation on the homefront during that conflict, and some of the things that happened to black veterans upon their return to the "world" in the postwar years. That only selected aspects of that experience are covered arises from the fact that blacks were not nearly as prolific inrecapitulating their tours of duty, forcing us to get at that information …

Acknowledgements, Kevin Bowen, David Hunt

Trotter Review

All of us at the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences are extremely grateful to our friends at the Trotter Institute for the opportunity to collaborate on this issue of the Trotter Review. It seems especially appropriate that this issue is being published at the time of the tenth anniversary of the founding of the center, named after William Joiner, Jr., an African-American veteran of the Vietnam War and the university's first director of Veterans' Affairs who died of cancer in 1981.

African Americans And The Persian Gulf Crisis, Jacquelin Howard-Matthews

Trotter Review

This article addresses two issues: the African-American response to United States involvement in the 1990-91 Persian Gulf war and interrelated factors explaining the nature of that response. Despite the historical symbolism associated with African-American participation and disproportionate representation in the military, African Americans composed the most consistently identifiable strata either opposed to or suspicious of the deployment of U.S. troops and military equipment in the Gulf. The pattern of African-American response to the Gulf War is remarkably similar to its underlying reactions to military conflicts taking place in the recent past, including the Vietnam War and Laos invasion of the …

Fragments From A Work In Progress, Elizabeth Allen

Trotter Review

A long time ago in a place far away, a place called Vietnam, I had to come to grips with the monkey. The monkey was not war. As a colored woman born in the forties, the monkey was life. Vietnam just forced me to look at it. Maybe it allowed me the opportunity. Who knows. Looking back at it has been almost impossible. You see, growing up my grandmother would always say when I wanted to explain something, "Baby-darling, will talking about something that has already happened change it?" Of course it wouldn't change anything. Any fool knows that. "Well," …

A Salute To African Americans Who Served In The United States Armed Forces, Harold Horton

Trotter Review

African Americans have volunteered to participate in every war or conflict in which the United States has been engaged. This is true despite their ancestors having been slaves for 244 years of America's history.

From the Revolutionary War to the Vietnam War, African Americans have demanded the right to serve their country in the armed services and, in several instances, they have made the difference between victory or defeat for American troops. Throughout this history, African Americans were ever cognizant of the dual freedoms—their own personal freedom as well as the nation's—for which they so bravely fought and gave their …

Vote Dilution Research: Methods Of Analysis, Sheila Ards, Marjorie Lewis

Trotter Review

Why have issues which disproportionately affect African Americans not been brought to the policy forefront and given attention properly so that effective solutions can be found? Because of their roles as controllers of the government's budget, politicians and other policy makers decide which problems will be addressed. It is important, therefore, that African Americans elect political candidates of their choice. In the past, African Americans largely were outside the arena of public policy setting. Thus, solutions to problems which disproportionately affected African Americans were not pursued.

Ron Daniels: Profile Of A Presidential Candidate, Harold Horton

Trotter Review

The mass media has said very little about it, but Ron Daniels, an African American, is a presidential candidate. In 1988, Daniels was the southern regional coordinator and deputy campaign manager for Jesse Jackson's campaign. Daniels, a veteran social and political activist as well as former director of the National Rainbow Coalition, declared his candidacy for president at a news conference October 14, 1991.

From 1974 to 1980, Daniels served as president of the National Black Political Assembly and in 1980, he was the chairperson of the founding convention of the National Black Independent Political Party. Daniels was the convener …

A. Philip Randolph And Boston's African-American Railroad Worker, James R. Green, Robert C. Hayden

Trotter Review

On October 8, 1988, a group of retired Pullman car porters and dining car waiters gathered in Boston's Back Bay Station for the unveiling of a larger-than-life statue of A. Philip Randolph. During the 1920s and 1930s, Randolph was a pioneering black labor leader who led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. He came to be considered the "father of the modern civil rights movement" as a result of his efforts to desegregate World War II defense jobs and the military services. Randolph's importance as a militant leader is highlighted by a quote inscribed on the base of the statue …

Race And Class In American Race Relations Theory, 1894-1939, Vernon Williams Jr.

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

The purpose of this essay is to identify the origins of the debate between Wilson and Pinkney. The period covered focuses on the years 1894 to 1939 - from the publication of Franz Boas's "Human Faculty as Determined by Race" in the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1894, to the publications of Robert E. Park's "The Nature of Race Relations" in 1939. It is my argument that the parameters of the discussion regarding the progressiveness of race relations in the United States were defined during these years, and that all current theories are but …