Black History Commons^™

Disney's Illusion Of Inclusion, Marissa Davis

All Theses

Walt Disney’s films were not simply entertainment, but a use of racial stereotypes as a profit strategy. Even scholarship that explores these tactics and critically analyzes his most problematic misrepresentations do not to consider the role of Walt Disney, as a man, in creating and promoting these narratives. These depictions, while somewhat in line with the culture when he first entered the business, failed to evolve as society changed. Rather, they were deliberate choices to attract white audiences and increase revenue.

Over time, these tropes became socially unacceptable, yet Disney maintained them for public consumption. While Disney and his company …

Clyde On A Cloud: Black Mass-Media Activism In 1950s Orlando, Nathan M. Pelz

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Clyde Sanders is fondly remembered by those who were fortunate enough to tune their radio dial to WLOF during the 1950s or WOKB in the ‘60s. His show played the coolest tunes for teenagers who, for the first time, could carry with them music in their pockets. Sanders served as more than a radio DJ, however. Being Black in Orlando in the midcentury was complex and often dangerous. Careful not to explicitly engage with topics of civil rights, Sanders quietly advocated toward racial justice, helped to coordinate meetings, and advance racial harmony with his show which, though intended for Black …

Bear Bryant, Sam Cunningham, And Popular Memory Of The Civil Rights Movement, Kurt E. Kemper

Research & Publications

Popular writers, sports journalists, documentarians, and fans of college football have built a legend surrounding the 1970 USC-Alabama game and its alleged significance in the process of desegregation, a legend that is deeply flawed and strongly resistant to scholarly correction.  The persistence of the legend, told from a white perspective for a white audience, does much to illustrate ongoing resistance to an interpretation of the Civil Rights Movement that places Black activists and direct action at the center of the story.

"Dark Spirits: The Emergence Of Cultural Nationalism On The Sidelines And On Campus", Kurt E. Kemper

Research & Publications

Black college students in the 1960s and 1970s struggled to gain access to the university extracurriculum, particularly in spaces dominated by the Greek system and Black females struggled against prevailing assumptions of traditional white femininity. Efforts by Black female students at UCLA to participate in the university spirit squads became enmeshed with broader efforts to create a campus Black Studies Department and the growing campus debate around Black Power.