Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Creating Community: Examining Black Identity And Space In New Guinea, Nantucket, Jared Muehlbauer

Graduate Masters Theses

In the late 18th century, the abolition of slavery through manumission initiated a period of enormous change in the lives of people of African descent living on Nantucket, MA. Newly free, people of color living on the island immediately began to establish families and purchase property. At the end of the 1700s, they founded the community of New Guinea, located on the southwestern edge of the town of Nantucket. Though enslavement had been abolished and the whaling industry brought economic opportunity to Nantucket, the people of New Guinea continued to experience evolving forms of racial inequality, discrimination, and violence. To …

Aa Ms 19 Eugene Jackson Papers, Emily Margaret Newell

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

This collection is comprised of family photographs, photo albums, bibles, hymnals, and newspaper from the early 20th century onward. The collection is organized into three series:

Series 1: Photographs

This series includes the personal photographs of Eugene Jackson’s friends and family as far back as the early 1900s. The most common themes and activities found in these photographs are leisure activities such as trips to the beach or the mountains, family get-togethers, professional portraits, and Christmas greeting cards.

Subseries 1.1: Loose Photographs

Loose photographs are organized into topical folders.

Subseries 1.2: Ruby Family Photograph Album

The photograph album includes black-and-white …

Why So Negative? Street Literature And Its Negative Effects On The African American Psyche, Lilly Lamia Simone

Theses (2016-Present)

Urban literature, more widely known as street lit is a genre of literature that glorifies and exaggerates drugs, violence, and sex in the lives of its African American characters. Through Street lit readers are introduced to the black man as a figure of power through illegal activity in his community, and black women as either overly aggressive or figures in need of protection. These novels choose loyalty over family, drugs, and athleticism over education, and money and power over morality. These novels and their glorifications cause African American people to see dream lives in goals that are not only unattainable …

The Almost Forgotten History Of Claver College, Katrina M. Sanders

Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium

This essay examines Claver College, an African American Catholic College located in Guthrie, Oklahoma, from 1936-1942. The author argues that while there is still much that is unknown about the short-lived college, the institution provided an opportunity for African Americans west of the Mississippi River to access higher education and served as an entre for the Catholic Church into an African American community.

From Perpetual Struggle To Liberation And Freedom: An Analysis Of Two Predominately African American Churches, Stanley Bernard Baldwin Ii

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

African American Church Music has a unique and robust history dating back to the era of the African Slave Trade. This project will focus on African American Church Music and its effect on the African American worship experience in the 21st century. The creation of spirituals and gospel music helped shape the doctrine and identity in the African American Church. However, its message of suffering and “longing to go home” has limited the worship experience of the African American demographic. Musical style, historical significance, and racial issues have played a significant role in shaping the African American worship experience. These …

Higher Command: An Examination Of African American Leadership In The Vietnam Era, Amanda Abulawi

Master's Theses

Since the founding of the United States, African Americans have sacrificed their lives to uphold the nation’s democratic ideals, all while being denied equal access to voting, education, employment, and housing rights at home. Military service appealed to many African Americans who hoped it would lead to social and economic advancement for themselves and their race. Despite African American military participation throughout the nation’s history, these soldiers were treated as outsiders through segregated units and often relegated to non-combative duties, until the Vietnam War. This was the first major conflict in which African Americans had been deployed in large numbers …

Review Of Liberia, South Carolina: An African American Appalachian Community, By John M. Coggeshall, Cicero Fain

History Faculty Research

Examining 150 years of history of a small, rural African American community, John M. Coggeshall’s Liberia, South Carolina: An African American Appalachian Community, contributes to recent studies elevating Black Appalachian voices, perspectives, and cultures previously historically elided. Located in Pickens County in the Blue Ridge region of western South Carolina, Liberia, like a lot of rural communities, exists less “as a legally defined entity and more a culturally defined area of recognized neighborly ties.”

Through The Ivory Curtain: African Americans In Cleveland Heights, Ohio, Before The Fair Housing Movement, J. Mark Souther

History Faculty Publications

This article examines the largely neglected history of African American struggles to obtain housing in Cleveland Heights, a first-ring suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, between 1900 and 1960, prior to the fair housing and managed integration campaigns that emerged thereafter. The article explores the experiences of black live-in servants, resident apartment building janitors, independent renters, and homeowners. It offers a rare look at the ways that domestic and custodial arrangements opened opportunities in housing and education, as well as the methods, calculations, risks, and rewards of working through white intermediaries to secure homeownership. It argues that the continued black presence laid …

Bearing Report: A Roundtable On Historians And American Veterans, James Marten

History Faculty Research and Publications

Five historians—each an expert on a specific era and issue related to veterans—were asked to ponder the following questions: 1. What are the most important questions explored by historians in veterans studies? 2. What are the books that have been most useful to your particular area of interest in veterans studies? 3. How can the history of veterans help us understand larger cultural, social, and economic issues during the time periods in which the veterans you study lived? 4. What are the particular contributions that a historic sensibility can bring to the study of veterans of any war? 5. How …

'Our Duty Is To Furnish Such Education:' Black Children And Schooling In Baltimore City, 1828 - 1900, Lisa Rose Lamson

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation focuses on the ways Baltimore City’s public school system developed in the nineteenth century as it was shaped by Black Baltimorean’s expectations of their children’s schooling. From the beginning of the city’s public school system, established in 1828, Black Baltimoreans advocated for their children’s futures by demanding access to universal, state sponsored education. Black Baltimoreans declared that children had a right to an education that was in sufficient buildings, had appropriate graded curricular choices that would benefit their futures, and were taught by black teachers or those “in sympathy” with them. This dissertation argues that for Black Baltimoreans, …

Disparities In Programming African American Solo Vocal Music On College Campuses Across The United States, Ramelle Brooks

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the representation of African American composers within the solo vocal literature genre of classical music. Literature suggests the music of African American composers is seldom taught in classical musical studies. The study explored one publicly available college recital database from each U.S. geographical region (Northeast, Midwest, South, West), which included listings of songs performed at each recital. The researcher recorded the number of recitals including African American composers and provided a numerical breakdown of song genres associated with African American Americans that included African American arts songs, Spirituals, Blues, Gospel, Jazz, and operatic arias. The number of …

The Messiah, The Mandate, And The Mission To Implement Multicultural Evangelism Through Intentional Racial Reconciliation Among African Americans And Caucasian Christians, Panisha Levern Stigger

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Paste or Type Your Abstract *

The Experiences Of Black Soldiers During The Civil War: A Microhistorical Case Study Of The Demus Family, Tora Ueland

West Virginia University Historical Review

As with most researchable source material, the voices of minorities and marginalized groups are often unavailable, nonexistent, or heavily obscured by the voices of their more privileged counterparts. The Civil War, for instance, is studied through a predominantly white lens, despite the importance of African American soldiers, civilians, and enslaved individuals enveloped in this conflict. This paper aims to analyze the African American perspective on the Civil War (1861-1865) and early antebellum period through the words of these individuals and the experiences of David Demus, an infantryman in the all-black 54th Massachusetts Regiment, and his family. Utilizing correspondence, letters, military …

Book Review: Understanding Alice Walker, Cindy E. Garcia-Rivas

South Carolina Libraries

Cindy Garcia-Rivas reviews Understanding Alice Walker, written by Thadious M. Davis.

Racial And Socioeconomic Disparities Influencing Obesity Amongst Middle-Aged Women, Morgan Woods

Master of Science in Integrative Biology Theses

Many studies have examined the effects of racial and socioeconomic differences on health-related disparities involving obesity but, few have examined the mental and physical well-being intersection. Obesity is a disease that affects many Americans and has become an epidemic affecting the American population. Obesity, especially morbid obesity, is a risk factor for many other obesity-related diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and more. Using the 2018 Healthcare Avoidance Study, differences were found between two racial groups, Caucasian and African-American women. Race was found as a significant factor for both level of physical activity and ideal body image perception

A Case For African American Reparations: The Inheritance Of Racist Hierarchies And Moral Harm, Ko Cheang

The Yale Undergraduate Research Journal

In this paper, I will argue that living white Americans with no individual ethical responsibility in original wrongdoings such as slavery, segregation and mass incarceration against African Americans in the United States have an obligation to repair the ongoing, present-day reproductions of past injuries. Using the Lockean inheritance argument for Black reparations laid out by Bernard R. Boxill as a starting point, I will show how a narrow conception of inheritance as property-based and merely legal is insufficient to justify reparations for non-property-based harms such as dignity loss or bodily violations. Drawing upon James Baldwin’s notion of history to explain …

“My Bruises Are Inward:” A Study Of Mental Trauma In The American Civil War, Cody Turnbaugh

Master's Theses

War is traumatic. Since the American Psychiatric Association first recognized post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 1980, living veterans of combat have been diagnosed at an alarmingly high rate. However, mental trauma related diagnoses have existed for centuries, including several that were identified around the time of the American Civil War. This thesis argues that Civil War soldiers experienced mental trauma related to their military service. It does so through three lenses. Focused on the mental trauma among Northern veterans, this study investigates in particular the relationship between mental trauma and socioeconomic status. It analyzes the experiences of both white and …

Reimagining Prince Hall: Race, Freemasonry, And Material Culture In Boston, 1775-1870, Sueanna Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation revisits the subject of early black freemasonry and draws upon a new wealth of archival material to recontextualize it through the lens of social history and print and material culture. This study explores the way that freemasonry operated in the daily lives of black masons and presents a new social history of the formation of Boston’s first black masonic lodge. Turning specifically to print and material culture, it traces the way that the earliest black masons engaged in the broader print and material culture of the society, thus promoting interracial engagement. This study also traces how the Prince …

The Evolution Of Protest And Social Movements In The National Basketball Association From The Mid-20th Century To The Present Day, Luke Messersmith

Honors Theses

For my thesis, I focus on the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the evolution of how its personnel—players, coaches, refs, owners, etc.—navigated racism, politics, social injustice, platform utilization, and other pressing topics from the mid-1900s to the present day. Monumental players that used their platform in the NBA to inspire change include Bill Russell (1960s), Kareem-Abdul Jabaar (1970s), Craig Hodges (1990s), and LeBron James (2010s). These men and many others risked their images, and in some cases, their NBA careers, in order to protest, march, boycott, and kneel for causes they believed in, such as the civil rights movement and …

Hard Work Through Heart Work: Life Lessons Learned Through My Lens Of Microaggressions, Sean E. Harness

Journal of Multicultural Affairs

According to a study by Johnson-Ahorlu’s (2013), African American students experienced racial stereotypes, which were presented to them as attacks on their academic capabilities. Many of the “attacks” included shock from faculty and peers when they achieved in the classroom and inquiries about their abilities to handle the course workload. I began my life as one of the statistics we read about. More specifically, the “poor Black kid” in inner-city Detroit Michigan who aspired to live a much better life. Although I grew up with very limited financial resources, my support system taught me to remain confident in the face …

An Archaeological And Spatial Exploration Of Yard Use At The Oval Site, Stratford Hall Plantation: A Mid-18th-Century Mixed-Use Site On The Northern Neck Of Virginia, Delaney Resweber

Student Research Submissions

The Oval Site (44WM80) is located on the grounds of Stratford Hall Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia and was excavated by the Department of and Center for Historic Preservation at Mary Washington College/the University of Mary Washington between 2001- 2014. The Oval Site was one component of a larger eighteenth-century plantation and is comprised of four structures. These buildings are currently interpreted as an overseer’s house, a barn, a kitchen, and an unidentified building. The kitchen had also served as a quarter for the enslaved Africans and/or African Americans that worked on this site. Using methods developed in landscape archaeology …

The Bourgeois Blues: Representations Of Race And Authenticity In The Songs Of Lead Belly, Jonathan Lower

Madison Historical Review

Abstract to come.

The Evolution Of Protest And Social Movements In The National Basketball Association From The Mid-20th Century To The Present Day, Luke Messersmith

Honors Theses

For my thesis, I focus on the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the evolution of how its personnel—players, coaches, refs, owners, etc.—navigated racism, politics, social injustice, platform utilization, and other pressing topics from the mid-1900s to the present day. Monumental players that used their platform in the NBA to inspire change include Bill Russell (1960s), Kareem-Abdul Jabbar (1970s), Craig Hodges (1990s), and LeBron James (2010s). These men and many others risked their images, and in some cases, their NBA careers, in order to protest, march, boycott, and kneel for causes they believed in, such as the civil rights movement and …

Representation Matters: African American Female Readers’ Perceptions Of Young Adult Literature, Asia Harden

Honors Theses

In 2019, only 6% of U.S. children’s books published were written by black authors. This portion of the publishing industry, and particularly the category of young adult literature (YA) has room for improvement when it comes to African American representation. To identify how this lack of representation affects readers, this study was broken into two parts which resulted in obtaining the African American female YA author perspective, as well as African American female readers. J. Elle and Kristina Forest were interviewed in the first portion of the study, and three focus groups were conducted in the second study with 13 …

That 90'S Kind Of Love: The Rise Of African American Romance Novels In Traditional Romance Publishing, Jamee Nicole Pritchard

Theses and Dissertations

In 1994, Pinnacle Books, an imprint of Kensington Publishing Corporation, launched a new line of romance novels that featured Black characters written by Black authors. The new line was called Arabesque, and it was the first of its kind in mainstream publishing dedicated to love stories that explored Black life and culture. The line influenced other publishers to follow suit in acquiring similar titles and authors, and because of the number of African American writers signed to major publishing houses in 1994, the year was deemed by the press as the birth of the African American romance novel. This study …

"The Only Prize Worth Contending For": A History Of Eckstein Norton University And The Industrial Model Of Education In Kentucky., Samuel Dunn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Under the racial hierarchy of Jim Crow, white politicians in Kentucky limited African American access to higher education. This practice resulted in a shortage of African American teachers and severely inhibited Black education across the state. Despite frequent criticism of the industrial model of education, African American educators in the region viewed the approach as an opportunity to gain white support for Black education. Two prominent educators, William J. Simmons and C.H. Parrish, gained the support of white elites and opened Eckstein Norton University in 1890. Their close association with prominent whites provided a degree of anonymity, enabling them to …

A World Of Infinite Possibilities: Recoding Popular Culture In Modern U.S. Ethnic Fiction, Todd Martinez

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This project examines how the U.S. ethnic authors Ralph Ellison, Maxine Hong Kingston and Junot Díaz reflect the dynamic, reciprocal process of transculturation by decoding popular cultural forms. Using strategies made available by cultural studies, hemispheric theory and neoMarxism, critical attention will be directed to each author’s major literary work: Ellison’s Invisible Man, Kingston’s Tripmaster Monkey, and Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. This dissertation further analyzes a hitherto overlooked area of U.S. multiethnic literary studies: the ethnic subject’s relationship to encoded popular culture forms and how they impact dentity formation. Recent scholarship has focused on the ethnic …

The Plan Starts Now: A Study Of Juvenile Delinquency And A Re-Entry Program Back Into The Community, Lynell Porch

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

African American youth are five times as likely as whites to be detained or committed to youth facilities; 1 out of 10 high school dropouts are institutionalized. $8–21 billion is spent locking up juvenile delinquents. The educational system has failed many African American youth, which can lead them into delinquency. These youth are disregarded in the educational system, placed in overcrowded classrooms, and often dismissed as unable to learn. The results of this are school to prison pipeline. Many youths have learning disabilities that are not addressed by teachers, so youth began acting out. These are acts of attention and …

Tracking And Experiences Of Black Students Following The Inception Of No Child Left Behind, Gwenda Walters

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

Academic placement in high school classes is an important decision that can have long-term effects on student success. Research indicates that students most often remain in high or low tracks year after year. However, the precision of placements relative to real achievement disparities in the grouping of students into homogenous groups remains a petulant area of debate. Many scholars consider placement judgments to be dubious, marginal, or incorrect in terms of performance gaps, notwithstanding the assumption that these placements are deemed accurate in representing a student's academic ability. Researchers argue that the process of comparing, sorting, and classifying students has …

In The Service Of God And Humanity: Conscience, Reason, And The Mind Of Martin R. Delany, Tunde Adeleke

Books

An analysis of Black activist Martin R. Delany's humanist vision for a world where everyone feels validated and empowered

Martin R. Delany (1812–1885) was one of the leading and most influential Black activists and nationalists in American history. His ideas have inspired generations of activists and movements, including Booker T. Washington in the late nineteenth century, Marcus Garvey in the early 1920s, Malcolm X and Black Power in 1960s, and even today's Black Lives Matter. Extant scholarship on Delany has focused largely on his Black nationalist and Pan-Africanist ideas. Tunde Adeleke argues that there is so much more about Delany …