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Full-Text Articles in History

"Yours For Freedom": The Life And Legacy Of Civil Rights Leader Victoria Gray Adams, Meridian Mcdaniel May 2022

"Yours For Freedom": The Life And Legacy Of Civil Rights Leader Victoria Gray Adams, Meridian Mcdaniel

Master's Theses

Understanding the life and legacy of Victoria Gray Adams (1926-2006) is key to appreciating the role of middle-aged African-American women activists in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement. She was born and raised in Palmers Crossing, a self-sustaining black community just south of Hattiesburg. Her upbringing fostered pride and a sense of independence in herself as a black person, which eventually influenced her efforts to inspire the local community’s involvement in the movement. Her participation and remarkable leadership in various Civil Rights groups helped solidify her role as a local, state, and national leader. The roles she held throughout her …


Playing His Own Game: Ernest 'Dutch' Morial's 1977 Mayoral Campaign For Citizen Participation In New Orleans, Eric Marshall May 2017

Playing His Own Game: Ernest 'Dutch' Morial's 1977 Mayoral Campaign For Citizen Participation In New Orleans, Eric Marshall

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Ernest “Dutch” Morial’s 1977 grassroots mayoral campaign disrupted the political status quo in New Orleans with his message of citizen participation. Morial’s citizen-driven campaign reached over the constituencies of established Black Political Organizations, capturing an eager audience with his message of political, social, and economic equality. With the help of volunteers and other community organizations, Morial created a grassroots campaign that focused on making city government more inclusive. Unattached to the traditional patronage structure, Mayor Morial empowered the black community, reducing the constraints of their political access. Although his legacy is difficult to discern in New Orleans current political realities, …


“If There Are Men Who Are Afraid To Die, There Are Women Who Are Not”: African American Women's Civil Rights Leadership In Boston, 1920-1975., Julie De Chantal Jul 2016

“If There Are Men Who Are Afraid To Die, There Are Women Who Are Not”: African American Women's Civil Rights Leadership In Boston, 1920-1975., Julie De Chantal

Doctoral Dissertations

Since the 1980s, narratives surrounding the Boston Busing Crisis focus on South Boston white working-class’s reaction to Judge Arthur W. Garrity's forced desegregation order of 1974. Yet, by analyzing the crises from such narrow perspective, the narratives leave out half of the story. This dissertation challenges these narratives by situating the busing crisis as the culmination of more than half a century of grassroots activism led by Black working-class mothers. By taking action at the neighborhood and the city levels, these mothers succeeded where the National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People and the Urban League had failed. …


Drive Toward Freedom: African American: The Story Of Black Automobility In The Fight For Civil Rights, Xavier Macy Dec 2015

Drive Toward Freedom: African American: The Story Of Black Automobility In The Fight For Civil Rights, Xavier Macy

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Looking across the 20th century, this thesis seeks to understand the relationship African Americans developed between automobility and the fight for civil rights, filling a gap left in the historiography of both the automobile and the Civil Rights Movement. Historians of the automobile have almost exclusively focused their lens on white suburbia and the “autotopias” that Americans created, while historians of the Civil Rights Movement ignored the automobile entirely. This thesis hopes to begin to fill that void by explaining how African Americans exploited the technological system of the automobile to create forms of transportation accessible to African American …