History Commons^™

Terrill Hughes, Mark Naison, Steven Payne

Oral Histories

Born to parents with roots in Jamaica and Mississippi, Terrill Hughes grew up in the Bronx, which is surrounded by cultural diversity and community pride. His early experiences were shaped by both the challenges of his environment and the strong guidance of family and fraternity brothers. Hughes described how joining Kappa Alpha Psi provided him with not only mentorship but also discipline and purpose, which changed the course of his life. He reflected on his role in helping to charter the Bronx Alumni Chapter and his hopes for expanding undergraduate chapters across local campuses.

In the interview, Hughes highlighted brothers …

Tyler Dow, Mark Naison, Stephanie Robinson-Ramirez

Oral Histories

Tyler Dow is an actor, rapper, and activist from the Bronx, interviewed here in conversation with Doctor Mark Naison and Stephanie Robinson Ramirez. A 33 year old from Co-op City—the largest housing development in the United States—Tyler gives his perspective on the art and cultural scene of his neighborhood during the turn of the twenty-first century.

Beginning with the background of his familial ties to Co-op City, Dow explains that the first twenty five years of his life were spent in one of the neighborhood’s many high-rise apartments. He describes Co-op City as a proudly middle-class community, one that residents …

Ruthless: The Revolution Of Gangsta Rap, Laci D. Lavoy

Theses

The popularization of gangsta rap in the United States was pivotal to the advancement of Black America following the close of the Civil Rights Movement. The ruthlessness of gangsta rap created a distaste of authority that became a catalyst for Black American unity and change. Artists quickly started writing songs that spoke out against issues plaguing Black and poor Americans, realizing the power of the microphone and the radio. These rappers created an awareness for White audiences that had not been present before and even created a space for White artists with shared experiences. Female rappers took this activism a …

Review Of God’S Long Summer: Stories Of Faith And Civil Rights, Jenny N. Liang

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

No abstract provided.

Failures In Federal Responses To Natural Disasters Along The Mississippi River, Alex Mceachern

The Ozark Historical Review

The author presents an historical view on the plans for and responses to disasters on the lower Mississippi River and the inadequacies of services for African American refugees.

Into The Canebrakes: Arkansas And Naacp's Campaign For A Federal Anti-Lynching Law, Marie Claire Durr

The Ozark Historical Review

Race relations worsened and violence driven by racism increased following World War I. As a result, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or the NAACP, began to scout out cases they could employ in the fight to enshrine federal protections against racial terrorism that were exemplified in Arkansas' 1919 Elaine Massacre and the 1921 lynching of Henry Lowery.

Gregory Delts, Mark Naison, Steven Payne

Oral Histories

Growing up and living in the Bronx up until recently, Gregory Delts detailed the institutions and communities that greatly impacted his life and how he has given back. The apartment building in which Greg was raised showcased the diversity of the Bronx and the strong community that they shared among residents. Friends and family alike cared for him and the other kids in the neighborhood by sharing their homes and food with one another. Although he attended the public schools in the Bronx until high school, he was sent to the rigorous Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts for his teenage years. …

Nosagie Ekhator, Mark Naison, Steven Payne

Oral Histories

Growing up in New York City and Pennsylvania, in the city and suburbia, Nosagie Ekhator navigated and rotated between two worlds that shaped his frame of reference. Having built community through this experience, whether it be through the shared memories of moving or Nigerian social clubs and conventions, he was able to create an identity of commonality. Although he felt the differences when shifting through both worlds, he was able to find people that understood his experience, as well as understanding his own individuality through food, music, religion, and being one of the only Africans in his public and private …

Maxine Agee And Kim Mcclain, Mark Naison, Steven Payne

Oral Histories

Kim McClain and Maxine Agee, the second and third presidents of the Bronx chapter of Jack and Jill of America Inc, both have their own experiences with Jack and Jill of America Inc. that is indicative of a vibrant sense of community created by the women alongside those around them. Kim McClain spent a lot of time on her own or with her siblings growing up as she had busy, hardworking parents – her father was the first black firefighter in Queens, New York, with a bold personality and an eclectic music taste ranging from Johnny Cash to Nat King …

Abdul Qadir Askia, Mark Naison, Steven Payne

Oral Histories

Sixth poll mark of the Kappa Alpha Psi (KAP) Fraternity, Abdul Qadir Askia is an African American man who is an accomplished professional in investment operations. He describes his early life as being nurtured with other cultures as he moved around New York City.

His father came to Brooklyn after migrating from California, where he was a member of the Black Panther Party, and where he would meet his mother. Askia lived in Brooklyn until he was seven, when he was sent to a boarding school in Senegal. When he came back, he moved around from place to place, from …

Contributors And Acknowledgments For Roots Of Justice: A History Of Race And Racism In Nebraska

Truth and Reconciliation History Project

Paul A. Olson, M. Dewayne Mays, Gabriel Bruguier, Kevin Abourezk, Preston Love, Jr., with Adam Fletcher Sasse, Heather Fryer, Sharon Ishii-Jordan, Emira Ibrahimpašić, and Julia Reilly

Acknowledgements

Frontmatter And Foreword To Roots Of Justice: A History Of Race And Racism In Nebraska, Bill Arfmann

Truth and Reconciliation History Project

Covers, Table of Contents, and Foreword:

There is much to understand about the history of Nebraska and how the past shapes the present. This book attempts to bring into clearer focus the triumphs and trials of five broad groups whose lives have often been overlooked when the state’s history is told. The authors know some of this history of racism firsthand: Most of them have lived as people of color in Nebraska. They’ve experienced “the good, the bad and the ugly” that makes up our state story. We encourage educators, scholars and family historians to continue to dig, to document …

Introduction To Roots Of Justice: A History Of Race And Racism In Nebraska, M. Dewayne Mays, Paul Olson

Truth and Reconciliation History Project

Nebraska has made racism a way of life through most of its history. It is still the way of life for many. In 2020, a Nebraska columnist wrote the following about Nebraska: “[T]he issues stemming from racism can seem like foreign concepts, confined to the larger cities (or the American South) and relics of a distant past.”2 The column goes on to show that these issues were not confined to large cities or to the South; they rested on our back door in Nebraska. Yet, one often heard back as far as one could remember that Nebraska is not and …

Faye Calhoun, Faye J. Calhoun M.S., Ph.D.

We Are NIH Oral History Project

No abstract provided.

A History Of African Americans In Nebraska, Preston Love Jr., Adam Fletcher Sasse, Le Clara Gilreath, Portia Love, Heather Fryer

Truth and Reconciliation History Project

Black people have been present in Nebraska from its earliest days as a U.S. territory. The first U.S. Census of Nebraska, conducted in 1860, counted eighty-one Black people who, together, formed .28 percent of the young territory’s 28,841 residents. That number grew to 3,443 Black residents in 1900, representing 3.5 percent of the 102,555 residents of the state of Nebraska. The number and location of Black Nebraskans varied greatly through the twentieth century, comprising 13.7 percent of the state’s population in 1940 and 11.8 percent in 2020. Although African Americans have been relatively small in numbers, the historical record reflects …

Vivian Pinn, Vivian W. Pinn M.D.

We Are NIH Oral History Project

No abstract provided.

Yvonne Maddox, Yvonne T. Maddox Ph.D.

We Are NIH Oral History Project

No abstract provided.

A Town Divided: Leadership At Hoxie, Rodney W. Harris

The Ozark Historical Review

Five elected School Board members, a School Superintendent, and local leaders in rural Hoxie, Arkansas, were people of strong beliefs who in 1955 desegregated their school district. In this article, I argue that a combination of moral leadership and pocketbook concerns drove these men to oppose outside forces intervening in Hoxie, Arkansas, and that by doing so these men created a precedence of using the federal courts to uphold integration.

The Residual Impact Of Slavery On How Enslaved Black Females Defined And Made Meaning Of Sexual Violence: A Content Analysis, Suzanne R. Bates

Dissertations

Thompson-Miller & Picca (2016) and Feimster (2023) argued that enslaved African American women, and even free African Americans after the Civil War were victims of non-consensual sexual activity and rape. The NISVS report revealed that before the age of 18 years old, 35.5% of African American women experienced contact sexual violence, 29.5% experienced non-contact unwanted sexual encounters, and 20.7% experienced rape (Basile et al., 2022). Researchers of slave scholarship have made the case for the importance of including discourse on slavery and enslaved Black females’ experiences when discussing present day sexual violence among Black women in the US today (Balfour, …

Black Americans’ Strategic Disengagement In Digital Protest: A Thematic Analysis Of Youtube Responses To Latino Deportation Appeals (2025), Professor Meya E. Hargett

The Scholarship Without Borders Journal

This qualitative study, grounded in digital discourse theory, investigates Black Americans’ responses to the Latino community’s calls for protest support against federal deportation policies under the current U.S. administration. Twelve publicly available YouTube videos from Spring 2025 were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis to identify key patterns in Black discourse, including themes of strategic withdrawal, political disillusionment, solidarity fatigue, and historical tension.

This study defines 'stand down' as a deliberate, non-antagonistic decision to refrain from participating in another group’s protest movement. Findings indicate that disengagement is not rooted in apathy but is shaped by long-standing racialized experiences, ideological misalignment, and …

In The Name Of The Mother, The Nation, And The Race: White Women, The Jim Crow South, & Moralized White Supremacist Feminism, Shayna M. Lawson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis introduces the concept of moralized white supremacist feminism to examine the central role white women played in constructing, legitimizing, and sustaining racial hierarchies in the Jim Crow South through a network of cultural and political organizing, particularly through the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Women’s Ku Klux Klan. Far from passive observers, white women were strategic agents of segregation, leveraging ideals of purity, motherhood, and moral virtue to enforce anti-Black violence and oppression through educational, civic, legal, and symbolic institutions, as well as extra-legal practices. Drawing from archival materials, oral histories, and critical race theory, this study …

Dreaming, Building, And Enduring Black Voices: Black Media In Omaha In The Post-Civil Rights Era, Elodie C. Galeazzi-Kelly

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This dissertation examines the purposes and roles of Black media in Omaha during the post–Civil Rights Era. It asks how African Americans and their allies in Omaha developed innovative media forms, institutions, and communication strategies to amplify Black voices, build community, and advocate for Black interests amid the rapidly shifting political and social landscape of the time. The study focuses first on three traditional forms of media (newspapers, radio, and television) and then broadens the definition of media to include key Black cultural institutions. These include a dramatic arts collective, a historical museum and archive, a memorial foundation, and an …

Black Women And The Suffrage Movement: Margaret Walker And Her Impact On Black Women's Suffrage In Virginia, Emmalee J. Layton

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

This paper examines the women’s suffrage movement, focusing on the battle for voting rights in the state of Virginia. Specifically, it will interrogate how the women’s suffrage movement related to Black women, and what it looked like for them to seek equal access to voting, highlighting the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia and its racist history. This paper also looks into Margaret Lena Walker, and the channels that she, as a Black woman, had to take in order to advocate for Black women’s voting rights prior to the passage of the 19^th Amendment of the Constitution, as well as …

Happy Birthday Floral Card From Dr. Salterwhite And Family To Eartha White

Eartha M. M. White Textual Material

Card: Card sent with flowers for a "Happy Birthday" from Dr. Salterwhite and family. Flowers from Thomas - Florist, 23 W. Monroe St., Jacksonville, Florida. Undated.

Dear Friend Of Humanity, Thank You For Contribution Postcard

Eartha M. M. White Textual Material

Card: Postcard sent in thanks for contributing to the Clara White Mission. Card signed by Martha Green, secretary; E. M. M. White, President; and Ed Vaughn, Treasurer. Handwritten on card: Ruby Jacobs 1504 Cleveland St. By Dr. J. P. Miller. Undated.

List Of Donations - Clara White Mission

Eartha M. M. White Textual Material

Document: List of people and their donations to the Clara White Mission. Undated.

Note Listing People To Thank For Donations

Eartha M. M. White Textual Material

Document: List of people to thank for donations. Undated.

Newsclipping, Legislators To Conduct 4th Hearing

Eartha M. M. White Textual Material

News clipping: Duval legislative delegation to hold public hearing on proposed legislation. Members of delegation list. Includes handwritten notations on Barnett National Bank deposit slip: City 10,000 C W M, County 10,000, 5,000 museum. Undated.

List Of Donations To The Clara White Mission

Eartha M. M. White Textual Material

Notes: List of people and their donations to the Clara White Mission. Undated.

Edward Condon, Edward S. Condon Jr.

We Are NIH Oral History Project

No abstract provided.