Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons^™

Whiteness In Africa: Americo-Liberians And The Transformative Geographies Of Race, Robert P. Murray

Theses and Dissertations--History

This dissertation examines the constructed racial identities of African American settlers in colonial Liberia as they traversed the Atlantic between the United States and West Africa during the first half of the nineteenth century. In one of the great testaments that race is a social construction, the West African neighbors and inhabitants of Liberia, who conceived of themselves as “black,” recognized the significant cultural differences between themselves and these newly-arrived Americans and racially categorized the newcomers as “white.” This project examines the ramifications for these African American settlers of becoming simultaneously white and black through their Atlantic mobility. This is …

Louis Armstrong, Gene H. Anderson

Music Faculty Publications

Despite his lifelong claim of 4 July 1900 as his birthday, Armstrong was actually born on 4 August 1901 as recorded on a baptismal certificate discovered after his death. Although calling himself “Louis Daniel Armstrong” in his 1954 autobiography, he denied knowledge of his middle name or its origin. Nevertheless, evidence of “Daniel” being a family name is strong: Armstrong's paternal great-great-grandfather, a third generation slave brought from Tidewater Virginia for sale in New Orleans in 1818, was named Daniel Walker, as was his son, Armstrong's great-grandfather. The latter's wife, Catherine Walker, sponsored her great-grandson's baptism at the family's home …

Dirty Pictures—Not For Sale: Re-Reading Bellocq’S Storyville Portraits, Mollie S. Le Veque

CGU Theses & Dissertations

In this paper, I examine E.J. Bellocq's "Storyville Portraits" within art historical and feminist historiographies. One of the most infamously alluring parts of New Orleans at the turn of the century, the Storyville red light district is hardly part of contemporary American consciousness today. Part of my work involves an evaluation of what a lack of archival resources does to perceptions of Storyville and more broadly, the stereotypical late Victorian “fallen women” that has been read into history - both by historians and popular culture. However, my focal point is indeed the portraits and how they might be re-read and …

Native Newspapers: The Emergence Of The American Indian Press 1960-Present, Russell M. Page

CMC Senior Theses

During the 1960s and 1970s, tribes across Indian Country struggled for tribal sovereignty against “termination” policies that aimed to disintegrate the federal government’s trust responsibilities and treaty obligations to tribes and assimilate all Indians into mainstream society. Individual tribes, pan-Indian organizations, and militant Red Power activists rose up in resistance to these policies and fought for self-determination: a preservation of Indian distinctiveness and social and political autonomy. This thesis examines a crucial, but often overlooked, element of the self-determination movement. Hundreds of tribal and national-scope activist newspapers emerged during this era and became the authentic voices of American Indians and …

Melungeon Portraits: Lived Experience And Identity, Tamara L. Stachowicz

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The desire to claim an ethnicity may be in response to an institutional and systemic political movement towards multiculturalism where ethnic difference is something to be recognized and celebrated (Jimenez, 2010; Tatum, 1997). Those who were a member of a dominant or advantaged group took that element of their identity for granted (Tatum, 1997). Identity work has included reflections and congruence between how individuals see themselves and how they perceive others to see them, including Optimal Distinctiveness Theory where one determines the optimal amount of individual distinctiveness needed to feel a healthy group and personal identity (Brewer, 2012). When most …

The Black Freedom Struggle And Civil Rights Labor Organizing In The Piedmont And Eastern North Carolina Tobacco Industry, Jennifer Wells

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines labor organizing in the U.S. South, specifically the Piedmont and eastern regions of North Carolina in the mid-twentieth century. It aims to uncover an often overlooked local history of civil rights labor organizing which challenged the southern status quo before America's 'mainstream' civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s. This study argues that through labor organizing, African American tobacco workers challenged the class, gender, and race hierarchy of North Carolina's very profitable tobacco industry during the first half of the twentieth century. In doing so, the thesis contributes to the historiography of black working class protest, …

Aa Ms 06 Home Is Where I Make It - Oral History Collection Finding Aid, Marieke Van Der Steenhoven

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

This oral history project was directed by Dr. Maureen Elgersman Lee, of USM, and Rachel Talbot Ross. The interviews were conducted by local high school students. The Collection includes transcripts, photographs and audiotapes from the two phases of the project, which documented African American life in the Greater Portland and Lewiston-Auburn areas.

Date Range:

2001-2003

Size of Collection:

1 ft.

Living A Parallel Life: Memoirs And Research Of A Transnational Korean Adoptee, Mary C. Robinson

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

This thesis project consists of two parts: a memoir of my experience as a Korean adoptee, and a research paper examining how transracial, transnational adoption affects identity development in Korean adoptees. The memoir, as a first person narrative, gives voice to the research as one example of the findings. The majority of research on Korean adoptees has focused on levels of adjustment within a short time frame after adoptees’ placement in their adoptive homes. While the overwhelming majority of the prior research has declared positive and overall satisfactory adjustment for most adoptees, serious flaws exist in the methodologies that do …

Volume 5 - Issue 1: La Créole - A Journal Of Creole History & Genealogy, Dr. Miki Pfeffer, Seraphia D. Leyda, Dr. Raphael Cassimere Jr., Ingrid R. Stanley, Dr. Ronald Dorris, Alexie Gaddis, Dr. Ernest G. Chachere, Catherine Ladnier

La Créole - A Journal of Creole History & Genealogy

The Louisiana Creole Research Association, Inc., known as LA Creole, was founded on August 21, 2004 as a New Orleans-based, non-profit family research and educational organization. Its purpose is to assist Creoles of Color in researching their ancestry, to educate the general public about Creole history and culture, and to celebrate the contributions and legacy of a unique, sometimes forgotten people. La Créole, the Association’s journal is published annually.

Mccartt-Jackson, Sarah (Fa 578), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full text (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Folklife Archives Project 578. Paper by Sarah McCartt-Jackson titled “Narrative Compromise: African American Representation at Henry Clay’s Ashland Estate.” Paper provides analysis of the inclusion and accuracy of the history of slavery at Ashland, and slavery’s depiction in tour narratives, brochures, exhibit signage, advertisements, and websites. This project won the 2011Folklife Archives Award competition at Western Kentucky University.

Race, Memory, And Historical Responsibility: What Do Southerners Do With A Difficult Past?, Larry J. Griffin, Peggy G. Hargis

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

Newly emerging, transitional societies –– that is, societies that traded dictatorial or authoritarian rule for some form of open or liberal polity –– face at least three interdependent problems of what is called in legal scholarship and social science “transitional justice”: the first is how (if at all) to hold the old regime’s autocratic, often violence-laden leadership responsible for its wrongdoings while in power; the second is what (if anything) to do with thousands upon thousands of ordinary folk whose participation in, or compliance with, the old regime helped legitimate and thus perpetuate the wrongdoing; and the third task how …

“Bury Your Head Between My Knees And Seek Pardon”: Gender, Sexuality, And National Conflict In John Okada’S No-No Boy, Patricia A. Thomas

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In “‘Bury Your Head Between My Knees and Seek Pardon’: Gender, Sexuality, and National Conflict in John Okada’s 1957 novel, No-No Boy,” I analyze the ways in which the complexities of gendered sexuality expressed by protagonist Ichiro Yamada intersect with post-World War II and Internment-era national identifications for American nisei. I demonstrate that this apparent story of one man’s pursuit to resolve his conflict over national identity is, in reality, a tour de force of literary subversion that not only destabilizes the subterfuge that surrounded internment but also—in its deliberate failure to resolve questions of national conflict on the …

Nationalitaetenrecht: The South Slav Policies Of The Habsburg Monarchy, Sean Krummerich

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The national development of the ethnic groups of the Habsburg Monarchy were influenced by the policies undertaken toward them by their rulers, the Austrian Germans and, after 1867, the Magyars of Hungary. Contrasts can be identified between those groups living in the Austrian part of the Monarchy and those living in the Kingdom of Hungary, a trend that can be identified in the Monarchy's South Slav populations (Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes), as this population inhabited territories on both sides of the dualist border. The present study examines the differences in the nationality policies toward the South Slavs on the part …

Negrocity: An Interview With Greg Tate, Camille Goodison

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

"A Shade Too Unreserved": Destabilizing Sexuality And Gender Constructs Of The New Negro Identity In Harlem Renaissance Literature, Renee E. Chase

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Much of the Harlem Renaissance artistic movement was directly intertwined with the New Negro social movement of the time. Race leaders spoke to and influenced artistic trends, while artists often engaged with the New Negro race issues and social debates through their works. Wallace Thurman, Nella Larsen, and Zora Neale Hurston used their own fictional works to explore the New Negro construct being promoted. In examining the constructed nature of this New Negro identity, these artists strove to destabilize the social "norms" upon which the identity was based. As they thematically and stylistically explored such social constructs through their fiction, …

Voices On Campus: Tina Merdanian And The Red Cloud Indian School

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

American Made: Ansel Adams And The Bishop National Bank's "The Islands Of Hawaii", Lauren Walton

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Sassin' Through Sadhana': Learned Leadership Journeys Of Black Women In Holistic Practices, Rachel Panton

Communication, Media, and Arts Faculty Book and Book Chapters

Women of color, especially Black women, are underrepresented in the extant literature and research of adult development and mind, body, spirit leadership. This in-depth qualitative portraiture study explored the lives of three Black women who have been leading their communities as adult educators of mind, body, spirit practices. This examination seeks to extend the research on Black female adult development and learning to include those who are guiding their respective communities through Yoruba, Yoga, and Christian-based holistic practices by addressing these questions: How have their spiritual/religious practices changed from childhood? What was their preparation for their current teaching practice like? …

'People Want To See What Happened': Treme, Televisual Tourism, And The Racial Remapping Of Post-Katrina New Orleans, Lynnell L. Thomas

American Studies Faculty Publication Series

Occupying the space between cultural reproduction and theatrical production, the HBO series Treme offers an important vantage point from which to analyze the intersection of race, class, culture, and media representation animating New Orleans’s post-Katrina tourist identity. Treme illustrates the tension between the welcome recognition and celebration of New Orleans black expressive culture and its spectacularization and commodification. The resuscitation of tourist tropes and an emphasis on jazz and heritage music in the series often render the city’s history of racial conflict and injustice invisible or subordinate to new narratives of cross-racial unity among Katrina survivors and paternalistic actions by …

From The Struggle To Liberation: A Critical Analysis Of The Film The Color Purple, Rebecca Matlock

Undergraduate Research Conference

This paper critiques and analyzes The Color Purple movie. The Color Purple movie released in 1985 is based on the 16982 novel written by author Alice Walker (Jones & Spielberg, 1985). The movie sheds light on he struggles that African American females faced as their reality in the 1930s. This paper begins with a brief overview of the movie discussing the context of the movie. The paper then discusses four intercultural concepts that is significantly related to the movie. The four concepts are: cultural norms, identity, self-awareness, and discrimination. From an intercultural communication view, the movie impacts, viewers by making …

Richey, Nancy Carol, B. 1959 (Fa 575), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 575. Interview conducted on 21 February 2012 by Nancy Richey and Sue Lynn McDaniel with Angela Townsend regarding Jonesville, an African American community in Bowling Green, Kentucky, that was eliminated by an urban renewal project in the 1960s.

Civil Rights, Labor, And Sexual Politics On Screen In Nothing But A Man (1964), Judith E. Smith

American Studies Faculty Publication Series

The independently made 1964 film Nothing But a Man is one of a handful of films whose production coincided with the civil rights insurgency and benefited from input from activists. Commonly listed in 1970s surveys of black film, the film lacks sustained critical attention in film studies or in-depth historical analysis given its significance as a landmark text of the 1960s. Documentary-like, but not a documentary, it offers a complex representation of black life, but it was scripted, directed, and filmed by two white men, Michael Roemer and Robert Young.

This essay argues that the film’s unusual attention to labor …

The Effects Of Tribal Governments On Reservation Poverty Rates, Heather Raisch

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Poverty rates on Indian reservations are far higher than the national average. Since Tribal Governments have at least some control over these reservations, to what extent are they to blame for these higher than average poverty rates? I look at each reservation and their type of government, constitution, policies and demographics to analyze the causes of their poverty as it relates to tribal government. There are many other pieces of research that are similar to this, but none looking specifically at the overall effects the government has on its community. My hypothesis is that communities with higher poverty rates tend …

Reading Between The Lines Of Slavery: Examining New England Runaway Ads For Evidence Of An Afro-Yankee Culture, Lauren Landi

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

This paper focuses on New England slavery and the way Africans and African-Americans were able to infuse aspects of the dominant English culture and their combined African heritage into their own Afro-Yankee culture. They created their own American identity, in which they adopted and at times mocked the very culture that placed them in this system of bondage. By looking at runaway advertisements from the colonial era we can see evidence of an Afro-Yankee culture that is clearly visible in the clothes slaves wore, the hairstyles they kept, their mannerisms, talents, and overall presence.

Postcolonial Religion And Motherhood In The Novels By Louise Erdrich And Alice Walker, Kateryna Chornokur

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a comparative analysis of the works of the Native American author Louise Erdrich (Love Medicine, Tracks) and the African American writer Alice Walker (The Color Purple). Originating from different cultural traditions, Native American and African American women writers address common themes in their novels because of their common colonial background. One of the main themes in their writings is that of religion. Despite becoming victims of Christianity used as a means of cultural colonization, both African American and Native American communities reinterpret it in terms of their traditional religious beliefs and create a new, unique hybridized form …

Taft, Ann Celine (Fa 49), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 49. Oral history interview with The Straightway Gospel Singers from Gallatin, Tennessee conducted by Ann Celine Taft for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University. Subsequent paper titled "The Straightway Gospel Singers" also included.

Remember The Fillmore: The Lingering History Of Urban Renewal In Black San Francisco, Christina Jackson, Nikki Jones

Africana Studies Faculty Publications

In the summer of 2008, I moved to San Francisco, California. I lived in the city for three months. As a researcher, my objective was to learn more about Mayor Gavin Newsome’s African-American Out-Migration Task Force. The Task Force convened in 2007 and met eight times from August to December. In 2009, the Mayor's office released a final report on the Redevelopment Agency's website that summarized the history of blacks in the city and outlined several recommendations for reversing their flight. The final report found that the political, economic, and social conditions of African-Americans are disproportionately more dire than any …

"Thrown On Their Own Resources": Collaboration As Survival In Imitation Of Life, Kristi Branham

Gender & Women's Studies Faculty Publications

The article presents an analysis of the film adaptation of "Imitation of Life," a 1933 novel by Fannie Hurst. It states that the repetition of the story across the first half of the twentieth century shows its resonance for U.S. audiences. It mentions that the woman question and the race question are brought together in the passing story in both the 1934 and 1959 film versions of the novel.

The Curious Case Of Asa Carter And The Education Of Little Tree, Laura Browder

English Faculty Publications

Little Tree was number one on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list on October 4, 1991, when historian Dan T. Carter published an op-ed piece in the New York Times that demolished the image of the book’s author, explaining that Forrest Carter was in reality Asa Carter, and he was no Indian. Rather, Dan Carter (no relation) wrote, “Between 1946 and 1973, the Alabama native [Asa Carter] carved out a violent career in Southern politics as a Ku Klux Klan terrorist, right-wing radio announcer, home-grown American fascist and anti-Semite, rabble-rousing demagogue and secret author of the famous 1963 speech …

"Spectacular Opacities": The Hyers Sisters' Performances Of Respectability And Resistance, Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

This essay analyzes the Hyers Sisters, a Reconstruction-era African American sister act, and their radical efforts to transcend social limits of gender, class, and race in their early concert careers and three major productions, Out of Bondage and Peculiar Sam, or The Underground Railroad, two slavery-to-freedom epics, and Urlina, the African Princess, the first known African American play set in Africa. At a time when serious, realistic roles and romantic plotlines featuring black actors were nearly nonexistent due to the country’s appetite for stereotypical caricatures, the Hyers Sisters used gender passing to perform opposite one another as heterosexual lovers in …