African History Commons^™

A Sacrifice On The Altar Of Unity: The Loss Of Black Identity In The Unification Of Kynett And Lagrange First Umc., Rebecca Sue Wishnevski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the 1996 merger of Kynett United Methodist Church, a historically Black church, and LaGrange First United Methodist Church, a traditionally White church in LaGrange, Kentucky. The study provides insight into nonurban Black churches, showing that while they may have smaller congregations in smaller towns, the Black church remains central to Black life and connection like its urban contemporaries. Methods for collecting primary source material relied heavily on oral histories performed by the researcher with Black and White individuals attending said churches and their experiences during the merger. The study reveals that although unification promised a modern building …

La Fiesta Del Espiritu Santo: An Original Work For Choir, Soloists, And Small Ensemble Influenced By The Santeria Music Of The African-Dominican Community In The Dominican Republic, Rafael Scarfullery

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This study examines the role of Santería music as practiced by African Dominicans in Villa Mella, a neighborhood of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. This musical tradition comes from the culture and religion of the Yoruba people who were brought as slaves from Africa, and features complex drum rhythms and call-and-response chants. This paper deals with the historical and social context of Santería music within the Dominican Republic, but its principal objective is to adopt the musical language of this tradition and use it to create a new contemporary work for mixed choir and small ensemble.

One of the most …

Powerful And Powerless: Reconfiguring The Agency And Supremacy Of Women In Selected Festivals In The Yoruba Town Of Isaga Orile, 1900-1958, Olusegun Olatunji

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses how the gender dynamics and religious festivals of the Yoruba people in Isaga Orile were not affected by colonialism. The study draws on various accounts, particularly from the Church Missionary Society’s journals, to attest to colonialism's restructuring of male political hegemony. Focusing on two major festivals, Gelede and Oro, the study argues that men's inclusion in Gelede reinforces female supremacy, while the Oro society shows men's hegemony and restrains women from its activities. The study found that gender dominants in these festivals played complementary roles by mirroring female and male roles within the Isaga Orile political system. …

Perspective Of Nyerere On Self-Reliance: A Transformational Rhetorical For Liberating African Identity In Tanzanian Context, Ayub Mwampela

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Julius Kambarage Nyerere (1922–1999) was the first president of Tanganyika in 1961 and the founding father of the United Republic of Tanzania, after having merged Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964. He died from leukemia on October 14, 1999, in London. He was 77 years old. Among the most memorable events in the life of Nyerere is his involvement in the struggle for the freedom of African people from foreign influences.

The goal of this research is to ask and answer to the following question: How does the perspective of Nyerere on self-reliance contribute to the effort of liberating African identity? …

Shifting Sands., Rachid Tagoulla

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Shifting Sands is a re-exploration of the presentation of North Africans in colonial postcards, an examination of identity, and a critique of the modern Western museum. Since the inception of photography, colonizers used this medium- especially in the form of postcards- to categorize and exoticize Eastern peoples in order to more easily subjugate them. Shifting Sands is a series of reconstructed colonial postcards which challenges colonial-era stereotypes of North African peoples. The colonial gaze, represented by the camera lens, is subverted through a lensless image-making process in which sand is used to remove the subject from the colonial gaze and …

Practicing Pan-Africanism: West Indians And Governance In Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana., Nicholas C. Mcleod

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

After gaining independence from England, Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, was transparent in his embrace of the entire African diaspora and actively recruited a number of Pan-African West Indian intellectual-activists, who mentored and advised him as a student in London, to help build Ghana as a Pan-Africanist state. Among these West Indian intellectual-activists were George Padmore, W. Arthur Lewis, T. Ras Makonnen, and Jan Carew. For these West Indians the appeal of Ghana was neither symbolic nor ceremonial, but rather an opportunity to achieve the ultimate objective of the Pan-African movement, a free and self-governed African continent. In …

Agency, Identity, And Authority In Rwanda: 1950s Political Rhetoric As A Bridge To Post-Colonial Genocide, Amanda E. Rollinson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the Rwandan genocide, Hutu targeted Tutsi and allies. Interpreting this complex event requires examining the late 1950s. Analyzing Tutsi and Hutu in central Rwanda in 1957 improves understanding of political and social context preceding the genocide. This study rejects that the genocide occurred as an inevitable event. Instead, it layers domestic actors with international groups: the White Fathers missionaries; the United Nations; Belgium; and the United States. Analyzing each group and synthesizing their interactions elevates Rwanda’s history from the falsehood of ancient adversaries to a complex, modern narrative. Studying Rwandan rhetoric and responses to it provides an opportunity to …

An Actor's Process In Bridging The Gap Between First-Generation And Multi-Generational African-American Identities., Mutiyat Ade-Salu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reflects my process assimilating into the role of Chelle in the production of Detroit '67 at the University of Louisville. Although there have been instances of actors crossing lines of gender, nationality, race, and even sexuality, to perform roles in contemporary theatre, discussion about generational differences is almost non-existent. Through historical research, first-hand interviews, and conventional acting methods, I explore the world of my role, searching for spirituality, authenticity, and identity. Additionally, I explain my use of The WAY Method ®, a process I began creating in 2014 to help actors be clear with who they are before …

The Life And Political Career Of Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Dylan Mcnutt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Hubert Horatio Humphrey never reached the Oval Office, but his accomplishments during his tenure as mayor, senator, and Vice President are just as noteworthy. During Humphrey’s political career he played a pivotal role in the most influential period of liberal American politics. During his youth and college years Humphrey became learned how to remain loyal to the people around him, and about the racial divisions of the South. Most research on Vice President Humphrey analyzes his time as a Senator, Vice President, and the 1968 Presidential election. The Life and Political Career of Hubert Humphrey, examines Humphrey’s life in its …

Ptolemaic Elephants In Iii Maccabees And The Social Stratification Of The Kingdom Of Kush, Leslie Dean Sam Jr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Trade helped to catapult early societies from hunter gatherers – living in small communities of friends and family – to living in sprawling urban environments of ideas and exchange. Socialization and the exchange of ideas – and war—molded our modern times into what it is now. Ancient Nubia found itself in a conundrum that would test their resolve. Ptolemaic-ran Egypt was at their border, forcing themselves in as conquerors, unapologetic towards the millennia old culture that contributed much to their society. With a truce made between the Greeks and Meroe, trade was inevitably was enacted between the two power houses, …

The Migration Of Indians To Eastern Africa: A Case Study Of The Ismaili Community, 1866-1966, Azizeddin Tejpar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Much of the Ismaili settlement in Eastern Africa, together with several other immigrant communities of Indian origin, took place in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries. This thesis argues that the primary mover of the migration were the edicts, or Farmans, of the Ismaili spiritual leader. They were instrumental in motivating Ismailis to go to East Africa. Although there were other Indian groups from the general geographical area of Western Indian and Gujarat who also migrated to East Africa, the crucial factor in the migration of Ismailis were the edicts or Farmans of the Imams. My thesis argues …

Self-Executed Dramaturgy : A Journey With Miss Ida B. Wells., Sidney Michelle Edwards

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents my experience with the production of Miss Ida B. Wells by Endesha Ida Mae Holland. I used self-executed dramaturgy to enrich my process as an actor and create multiple vocally and physically dynamic historical characters. Throughout this document, I explore how my personal acting process and development as an artist are heavily influenced by the practices of the Alexander Technique. I discuss the unique challenges that I faced with scoliosis and vocal trauma and how I used the training I received during my graduate career to address those challenges. My personal account details the specific methods by …

For The Good That We Can Do: African Presses, Christian Rhetoric, And White Minority Rule In South Africa, 1899-1924, Ian Marsh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research examines Christian rhetoric as a source of resistance to white minority rule in South Africa within African newspapers in the first two decades of the twentieth-century. Many of the African editors and writers for these papers were educated by evangelical protestant missionaries that arrived in South Africa during the nineteenth century. Most prior research on these presses has examined the importance of Christianity, but has not taken into account the evolution of its use over the entirety of the period. Without this emphasis on evolving utilization, the current scholarship lacks a complete understanding of African newspapers and their …

Defying Convention: Atypical Perspectives Of Slavery In Antebellum New Orleans, Amanda N. Carr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the first half of the nineteenth century, slavery became a vital economic component upon which the success of the southern states in America rested. Cotton was king, and slavery was the peculiar institution that ensured its dominance in the domestic and international markets of America. Popular portrayals, however, often neglect the complicated dynamics of American slavery and instead depict the institution in simplistic terms. The traditional view has emphasized an image of white southerners as slaveholders and blacks as slaves. In New Orleans, the lives of three men—all of whom were tied to slavery in varying capacities—reveal a much …

Race, Rebellion, And Arab Muslim Slavery : The Zanj Rebellion In Iraq, 869 - 883 C.E., Nicholas C. Mcleod

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the ninth century, enslaved Africans from the east coast of Africa, called the Zanj, revolted for nearly fifteen years in southern Iraq against their Arab slave masters and challenged the social order of the Abbasid Empire. This thesis is a socio-historical investigation on the role that race played in starting the Zanj Rebellion of 869 C.E. It examines the Arab Islamic slave trade and the racial stratification experienced by blacks in the early centuries of Islamic history in conjunction with the Zanj Rebellion. The thesis applies a structural framework for analyzing race, to demonstrate the racialization process, prevalent racial …

The Casamance Conflict : Un-Imagining A Community., Sandra Tombe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Casamance conflict in the southern region of Senegal started in 1982, when protestors rallying after the MFDC pulled down the Senegalese flag from public buildings in Ziguinchor calling for independence of the Casamance region. The movement based its claim for an independent Casamance on the different colonial history that distinguished it from the rest of Senegal. Surprisingly, it was not until later in the development of the movement that ethnic, linguistic, religious, and regional differences between the two regions came to factor into the MFDC’s platform. This thesis then seeks to examine why and when these dimensions come to …

Withholding Political Authority: Civil Society And People's Power In Zimbabwe, A. Scott Dupree

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The relationship of civil society to the state is rarely antagonistic and at most times supportive. The political regime and civil society are taken to be interdependent social structures that interact through hegemonic, supportive and socially constructed dimensions. Given this interdependency, when does civil society challenge authority or does its efforts rise to the level of a people's power revolution? When does it act to dismantle the political regime or seek to reconstruct it? This project attempts to shed light on how civil society mobilizes a people's power capable of challenging political authority through the story of its ongoing struggles …

Museveni's Centralization Of Power: The Political Economy Of Development In Uganda, Nathan Vasher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis develops a model of structural power in society that builds upon Weber's notion that several types of power exist in societies and that these types of power operate differently within societies. The purpose of this model is to help explain the political economy of development during Museveni's tenure. The thesis argues that Museveni has centralized power through a complex system of patronage and repression. Furthermore, Museveni's transformation from the leader of a cadre of `new breed leaders' to `just another African big man' results from his choice to centralize power as a means of achieving his revolutionary goals. …

Tea And Sympathy: The United States And The Sudan Civil War, 1985-2005., Peter William Klein

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The specters of violence and economic insecurity have haunted the Sudan since its independence in 1956. The United States Congress has held numerous hearings on the Sudan's civil war and U.S. television news outlets have reported on the conflict since 1983. While attempting to engage the Sudan in a viable peace process, the U.S. Congress has been beset by ineffectual Cold War paradigms and an inability to understand the complexities of the Sudan civil war. U.S. television news programs, on the other hand, engaged in a process of oversimplification, using false dichotomies to reduce the conflict into easily digestible pieces. …

A Kenyan Revolution: Mau Mau, Land, Women, And Nation., Amanda Elizabeth Lewis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Kikuyu, the largest ethnic group in Kenya, resisted colonial authority, which culminated into what became known as Mau Mau, led by the Kenya Land Freedom Army. During this time, the British colonial government imposed laws limiting their access to land, politics, and independence. The turbulent 1950s in Kenyan history should be considered a revolution because of its violent nature, the high level of participation, and overall social change that resulted from the war.

I compared many theories of revolution to the events of the Mau Mau movement. Then, I explained the contention for land in the revolution, the role …

The Conference Of Algeciras 1906., Marjorie Lucille Rogers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.