African History Commons^™

Didn’T My Lord Deliver Daniel? An’ Why Not Every Man? Black Theodicy In The Antebellum United States And The Problem Of The Demonic God, Emma Norman

Pitzer Senior Theses

Introduction Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel? An' Why Not Every Man: Black Theodicy in the Antebellum United States and the Problem of the Demonic God is an ambitious attempt to construct a coherent narrative that spans many centuries and connect numerous historical persons and figures in recent scholarship. I set out to understand how an enslaved person could have faith in the goodness of god despite their oppressed condition. I learned that most enslaved Africans first encountered Christianity when they became the “property” of Christians. Then, in a revolutionarily creative move, the Black community re-signified Christianity from a religious system …

Shipboard Insurrections, The British Government And Anglo-American Society In The Early 18th Century, James Buckwalter

2010 Awards for Excellence in Student Research & Creative Activity - Documents

Captain Francis Messervy, first time captain on the slave ship Ferrers and perhaps overly ecstatic after his most recent successes at sea, maneuvered unprotected below deck to inspect his newly purchased Africans. As he lurched further down into the Ferrers, Messervy would have seen sailors whose duty it was to guard against insurrection and the three hundred or more Africans he had recently purchased following a war between two neighboring polities near Cetre-Crue. What Messervy perceived as good fortune, fellow captain William Snelgrave saw as cause for concern, noting that controlling "many Negroes of one Town and Language" had its …

The Curse Of Diamonds, Holly Thomas

2010 Awards for Excellence in Student Research & Creative Activity - Documents

Sierra Leone and Liberia have exported rough diamonds since the discovery of diamonds in the Mano River basin in the 1930s.i It was not until the late 20th century when these minerals were nicknamed conflict diamonds, loot-able resources sold to fund rebel movements and terrorist organizations. Conflict diamonds have been linked to civil war, corruption, and human rights violations. Both countries suffered through bloody civil wars, slow development, and a low standard of living. Sierra Leone's civil war resulted in thousands of deaths and the displacement of one-third of the country. Liberia's civil war resulted in over 200,000 deaths and …

Apartheid, Act Ii, Ryan Irwin

History Faculty Scholarship

A review of "From Global Apartheid to Global Village: Africa and the United Nations" by Adekeye Adebajo.

Triangulating A Modernization Experiment: The United States, France And The Making Of The Kossou Project In Central Ivory Coast, Abou B. Bamba

History Faculty Publications

Toward the end of the 1960s, authorities in the Ivory Coast decided to build the Kossou Dam, a hydro-electric dam on the Bandama River near the geographic center of the Francophone country. Initially conceived as a technopolitical measure to meet the growing energy demand of the most economically successful country of France's former colonies, the damming experiment soon emerged as a multipurpose regional development project aimed at correcting the regional disparities that tarnished the Ivory Coast's phenomenal economic growth.

This article focuses on the Kossou modernization experience and the sociopolitical transformations that it caused. I argue that the nationalist enthusiasm …

Interview With Danny Davis, Terence Sims

Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement

Length: 67 minutes

Oral history interview of Danny Davis by Terence Sims

Dr. Davis begins by outlining his introduction into activism and politics, when he served as executive director for the Greater Lawndale Conservation Commission in 1968. He explains how his definition of apartheid, which he is still fighting against, encompasses the massive underrepresentation of Black Americans in U.S. government positions. He details his childhood in rural Arkansas, growing up with ten siblings on a farm. He recalls early figures in the Civil Rights Movement in Arkansas, like the Little Rock Nine and Martin Luther King, Jr. He explains how …

Interview With George Schmidt, Melena Grace Nicholson

Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement

Length: 154 minutes

Oral history interview of George Schmidt by Melena Grace Nicholson

Chicago Public School teacher and union activist, George Schmidt discusses his work as editor of Substance a newspaper covering public education that he helped found in 1975. His activism was sparked during his college years and he recounts his work during his teaching career. He was involved in the G.I. movement and military counseling, working with ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union), and people in Angola and Mozambique, before becoming a teacher. His interest in military counseling and the G.I. movement stems from his own parents’ experience during …

Interview With Helen Shiller, Jacob Martin Lingan

Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement

Length: 50 minutes

Oral history interview of Helen Shiller by Jacob Martin Lingan

Ms. Shiller first outlines the path that led her to forming the Anti-Apartheid Ordinance, beginning with her work with the Minister of Information for ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union) and a trip to Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and South Africa, which led to her interest in the latter. She recalls how, when she returned to Chicago, she was motivated to strengthen legislation against the Apartheid government. She describes the process they went through to force Chicago banks to divest from South Africa, which happened to coincide with Nelson Mandela’s …

Interview With Clarice Durham, Lauren Ashley Alexander

Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement

Length: 95 minutes

Oral history interview of Clarice Durham by Lauren Ashley Alexander

Clarice Durham recalls her childhood and recounts her work with the Illinois NAACP, The National Anti-Imperialist Movement in Solidarity with African Liberation (NAIMSAL), and as co-chair of the National Alliance Against Racial and Political Oppression. She campaigned for justice in the Scottsboro Boys case in 1931, attended the founding convention of the Progressive Party in 1948, and participated in the March on Washington in 1963. As Durham recaps her trip to South Africa, she recalls the change it had on her and her views of the movement. …

Mass Graves And A Thousand Hills: University Student Perspectives On The Gacaca Courts In Post-Genocide Rwanda, Jacqueline Lewis

Inquiry Journal 2010

No abstract provided.

A Study Of Democracy In Africa: The Senegalese Experience, Ryan Robert Riley

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis examines the development of democracy in Senegal, one of the few democracies in Africa. In order to understand why democracy has been such a challenge to establish and maintain in Africa, it is necessary to account for the broad effects of European colonization. European powers in their attempts to "modernize" the people of Africa disrupted their natural cultural progress.

Mémoires Épistémiques Et Pouvoir D’Experts Dans Une Postcolonie Africaine: Le Cas De L’Usage Des Savoirs Africanistes Par L’Orstom En Côte D’Ivoire, Abou B. Bamba

History Faculty Publications

Partant du constat que l’Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique Outre-Mer (ORSTOM) s’est impose par son travail de recherche appliquee comme le concepteur primordial de la planification du developpement en Cote d’Ivoire a la fin des annees soixante, cet article montre que la mobilisation du souvenir des discours institues en science (ou memoires epistemiques) par les chercheurs de l’ORSTOM y a joue pour beaucoup. En se reappropriant les savoirs africanistes laisses par leurs predecesseurs que leur acces privilegie a la “bibliotheque coloniale” a rendu possible, les orstomiens en poste dans la postcolonie ivoirienne ont reussi a supplanter non seulement …

“Lost In Translation?”: Women’S Issues In The Struggle For National Liberation In South Africa (1910-1985), Carly F. Bower

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the struggles of South African women from the beginning of the Union of South Africa and the period of Segregation to the period of national defiance during Apartheid, throughout all of its ebbs and flows. By contextualizing women’s struggle for political and gender liberation within the political struggle of black men in South Africa, this study broadens the picture of female involvement within the anti-Segregation and anti-Apartheid struggles. In formal organizations such as trade unions and the Federation of South African Women, by the force of grassroots movements and boycotts, and through the persistence of informal economic …

Le Roman Africain : Drame Or Histoire, Bernard Mouralis

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

For a long time, African novelists claimed filiation with realism. But there is in realism a deep contradiction between the will of describing the social world and the will of changing it. From this contradiction, the paper studies : the relation between theatre and novel ; the question of citizenship in the novel ; the place of the novel in front of knowledge and action. The novel shows dynamics and characters living in the time. So, it tends to wander from the principle of knowledge and self-consciousness.

De La Parole Poétique À La Parole Politique Dans Les Oeuvres Théâtrales D’Aimé Césaire Et De Sony Labou Tansi, Virginie Darriet-Féréol

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Aimé Césaire and Sony Labou Tansi wished for acting and voicing for their people both on the political and literary level. By choosing the drama, they presented the language. By creating a new language, a new literature, a new artistic aesthetics, consequently a new trend of thinking, their writing served policy.

Le Théâtre Amateur Marocain. Trajectoire D’Un Théâtre Alternatif, Omar Fertat

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Modern Moroccan theatre was born with non-professional artists and has remained intimately linked to this milieu. Unlike professional playwrights, non-professional artists have never bowed to the demands of political authorities, whether it be the French administration or the local Makhzen. They used this artistic medium as a forum for debate and resistance against the oppressor. This freedom of expression operated not just at the political level but also at the aesthetic level. Since non-professionals were not constrained by the need to please an audience fond of social comedies and melodramas, they could explore more risky avant-garde paths. In spite of …

L’Écriture De La Perte Chez Assia Djebar, Lila Kermas

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This study proposes a reflexion on the feeling of “loss” as a source of literary creation. The different tensions generated by an hybrid identity of a character in a quest, especially in La disparition de la langue française (“disappearance of the French language”) by Assia Djebar ; what matters here is to see how the feeling of crisis and the split reveals itself and how it dissolves in and through (the process of) writing.

Mutations Politiques Et Processus De Légitimation Culturelle : Considérations Sur Le Théâtre Populaire Camerounais, Pierre Fandio

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

All forms of theatre have never been perceived the same way in contemporary Cameroon. Whereas the written theatre relatively received an acceptable treatment from the official instances of recognition, the non-written one has always been excluded. This communication sets out to show how, from this marginalized position and palpably inspired at the same time from the Italian commedia dell’arte, the French vaudeville and the African traditional dramaturgic shape, a new and popular form of theatre came to existence. Thanks to the exceptional capacity of adaptation and innovation of its discourse and thematic, the offer of this “street dramaturgy” rather matches …

La Dramatisation De L’Écriture Chez Sony Labou Tansi, Georges Ngal

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

As an author always articulates his writing with idioms that reflect a specific time period and a given social group, Sony Labou Tansi talks about “tropicalité”, and gives himself the goal to create multiple “tropicalités”.

L’Art De L’« Écrire » Chez Patrick Chamoiseau, Savrina Parevadee Chinien

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

In the works of Patrick Chamoiseau, the act of writing is a main, recurrent theme. The narrator, often, tries to define himself through his writings which have their own autonomy in the novel. This character questions his writing and is torn by the dissatisfaction he feels to get close to the “breath” of the creole storyteller : the chasm between orality and writing creates suffering. He, then, advocates l’“écrire”, closer, according to him, to the utterance of the storyteller and free of the “constraints” of an occidental writing, which he considers as stamped by the ideology of the Universal.

Christian Missions And Colonial Empires Reconsidered: A Black Evangelist In West Africa, 1766-1816, Edward E. Andrews

History & Classics Faculty Publications

The article presents an exploration into the work of the late 18th-century West African Anglican missionary Philip Quaque and the relationship between imperialism and religion during the colonial era. The author points out and criticizes the dominant historiographical trend of over-conflating White imperialism with Christian missions. Quaque's life and writings are examined, highlighting the lack of forced cultural conversion within his missionary activities. Discussion is also given regarding the complex identity dynamics within Quaque as a Christian and as an African.

Interview With Funeka Sihlali, Renell Schubert

Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement

Length: 92 minutes

Oral history interview of Funeka Sihlali by Renell Schubert

Ms. Sihlali begins by describing her childhood in King William’s Town when the Apartheid regime was instituted, living in government housing with her family in a single-room house with no bathroom, sharing a toilet with four other households. She explains having to learn the customs which were different from that in her home, for example, to look at African elders was a sign of disrespect, but outside of the home, she had to learn to make eye contact with white people to keep them from seeing her as …

Interview With Otis Cunningham, Danny Fenster

Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement

Length: 98 minutes

Oral history interview of Otis Cunningham by Danny Fenster

Mr. Cunningham begins by explaining what it was like growing up amidst the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago, witnessing the reactions to the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. He explains how he first became involved in activism for African liberation movements when he joined the African-American Solidarity Committee where he served on the editorial board of their journal and he elaborates on the work they did. He recalls the social gatherings that sprung up through the movement. He explains the complicated history and relationships …

‘That Ye May Know Each Other’: Late Victorian Interactions Between British And West African Muslims, Brent D. Singleton

Library Faculty Publications & Presentations

From the early 1890’s to 1908 members of the Liverpool Moslem Institute led by Sheik William Henry Abdullah Quilliam had extensive contacts with their West African Muslim counterparts. This era was marked by several trends including the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, European colonialism, extensive overseas Christian missionary activities as well as the vast expansion of Islam in West Africa. In this milieu, the British and West African Muslims built a mutually beneficial relationship with equality, respect, and brotherhood as its cornerstone. Their contacts developed and flourished quickly, leading to extensive correspondence, visits, and general support for one another’s causes. …

Baird, Thomas Henry, 1933-2009 (Sc 1945), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1945. Letters written by Thomas Henry Baird to his wife, Nancy Disher Baird, Cherry Point, North Carolina, discussing his service as a physician on a navy vessel on a mission to several African nations.

Genres Populaires Et « Érographiques » En Afrique Francophone : Le Cas Des Romans De La Collection Adoras, Sathya Rao

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article will take the Adoras novels as a case study to address the aesthetics and institutional issues related to the emergence of popular literature in francophone Africa. As the promoter of an “erographic” discourse that strives to accommodate modernity and tradition, francophone romance, which has been largely under-examined if not denigrated, raises a wide range of questions on the status of francophone literature, the socioeconomic constraints on publication in Africa, and the construction of a truly African erotic imaginary.

Quand On Vient Aussi De L’Autre Monde: Appartenance(S), Conflit(S) Et Déchirement(S) Dans L’Enfant Des Deux Mondes De Karima Berger, Carla Calargé

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

My essay analyzes Karima Berger’s first novel, L’enfant des deux mondes (1989). The author who has been living in France for more than 25 years tells the story of a Muslim Arab girl (herself ?) educated in the French school system of pre-independent Algeria. In this study, I examine linguistic, cultural and religious issues raised by the novel in an effort to identify the factors that keep the protagonist imprisoned in a permanent state of being in-between-two-worlds without fully belonging to any of them.

Le Feu Sous La Soutane, Roman Populaire? Du Génocide À Sa Transposition Fictionnelle, Josias Semyjanga

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

A reflective, first-person account, Benjamin Sehene’s Le feu sous la soutane is the story of memories of a double crime of rape and genocide by a Catholic priest, Father Stanislas. At the beginning of the killings of the Tutsi, some people take refuge in a parish in Kigali. Its priest takes under his protection a few Tutsi women, hiding them in the presbytery. But, the Holy man will rape them. He also participates alongside with the Hutu militia to the extermination of the Tutsi who came to take refuge in the parish. Later the priest took refuge in France where …

Soleil, Sexe Et Vidéo: La Comédie Populaire Aux Antilles, Françoise Naudillon

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The comedy of manners presented in the form of play or in the form of sketches or playlet by the medium of videos and DVDs is a phenomenon that develops in Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyana, but also in France. These productions are the link between communities in the Creole area (Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyana) and the outside (metropolitan France and diaspora). They will be analyzed for their popular and scholarly features between erudite comedy and farce, between traditional and postcréolitaire cultural affirmation, between Creole and French, between Italian theatre and yardplay, between creole comedy and vaudeville, between negropolitan diaspora and …

“The Negro Speaks Of Rivers” An African Centered Historical Study Of The Selfethnic Liberatory Education Nature And Goals Of The Poetry Of Langston Hughes: The Impact On Adult Education, Sarah E. Howard

Dissertations

The purposes of this historical study were to 1) document the Selfethnic Liberatory adult education nature and goals of the poetry of Langston Hughes (from 1921 to 1933); and 2) to document the impact this poetry had on members of the African Diaspora. In addition, the goal of this research was to expand the historical knowledge base of the adult education field, so that it is more inclusive of the contributions of African Americans.

This study addressed the problem that the historical and philosophical literature of the field does not to any significant degree include the intellectual and adult education …