African American Studies Commons^™

The Operation Was Successful But The Patient Died: The Politics Of Crisis And Homelessness In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Evan Casper-Futterman

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

On July 4^th, 2007, a small group of housing activists set up a tent city encampment in a plaza adjacent to New Orleans City Hall. The action resulted in the creation of Homeless Pride, a small group of politicized Plaza residents. Six months later, hundreds of homeless people were moved from the park, and it was fenced off. Using archival videos, interviews, and news media, this thesis analyzes the opportunities and constraints that activists, service providers, and local officials faced in light of two intersecting and overlapping contexts. The first context is the immediate crisis of the levee …

Oscar James Dunn: A Case Study In Race & Politics In Reconstruction Louisiana, Brian Mitchell

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The study of African American Reconstruction leadership has presented a variety of unique challenges for modern historians who struggle to piece together the lives of men, who prior to the Civil War, had little political identity. The scant amounts of primary source data in regard to these leaders’ lives before the war, the destruction of many documents in regard to their leadership following the Reconstruction Era, and the treatment of these figures by historians prior to the Revisionist movement have left this body of extremely important political figures largely unexplored. This dissertation will examine the life of one of Louisiana’s …

Volume 4 - Issue 1: La Créole - A Journal Of Creole History & Genealogy, Karen Becnel Moore Ph.D, Fernin Eaton, Shandria Smith, Fatima Shaik, Alexander Tureaud Jr., Beverly Jacque Anderson, Sybil Kein, Rachel Emanuel, A.P. Tureaud Jr.

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.

Finger Lickin’ Good: An Analytical Investigation Into The Urban Diet, Jennifer T.R. Tomlinson

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

In this analysis, the origins, customs and implications of fast-food culture will be explored with important focus on the customs of fast-food urban eating. Research indicates that lower-income urban areas are more likely to consume fast-food. The high consumption of fast-food subsequently results in the development of social and economical implications, which include health implications, economic dilemmas, a disconnection between consumers and their consumption and issues of social classification. This analysis also explores the customs of fast-food culture of Pine Hills, Florida with added emphasis on Pine Hills’ cultural uniqueness.

“'You Done Cheat Mose Out O' De Job, Anyways; We All Knows Dat'”: Faith Healing In The Fiction Of Kate Chopin, Karen Kel Roop

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1850, the half-way mark of the century in which the country itself would be broken in two, Kate Chopin was destined to bear witness to the many divisions that have distinguished the United States. Especially noticeable in the post-Reconstruction period in which she wrote was the expanding chasm between the races. This dissertation argues that even Chopin's most seemingly orthodox Southern stories betray a quest for a theology capable of healing the physical, emotional, and spiritual ills omnipresent in the country and especially apparent in the post-Civil War South. The alternative to mainstream Protestantism …

The Failure Of The Free World: Anarchy In Uncle Tom’S Cabin, Andy Cerrone

Interdisciplinary Perspectives: a Graduate Student Research Showcase

Harriett Beecher Stowe is often identified as an advocate for Christianity, woman's suffrage, autonomy, and the abolishment of slavery.  However, inviting the reader to view her work through an anarchist lens, her magnum opus—Uncle Tom’s Cabin— offers the reader the opportunity to reconstruct her politics with immense implication.  Critics regard Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as a sermon devised with the intention to inflate the nation with the righteous spirit of God, offering to the reader the opportunity to partake in the message of her religious vision.  While Stowe's absolute faith in her Christian profile of God is present, she invariably …

Misogyny And The Money, Leah Stevenson

2011 Awards for Excellence in Student Research & Creative Activity - Documents

View Ms. Stevenson's Painting.

In the late 90's hip-hop started as a form of encouragement and empowerment for black people who struggled when growing up. Hip Hop gave black people a voice, where their opinions and challenges could be heard throughout the world. Today the genre of Hip-hop music has developed into a negative image that degrades women and negatively influences the younger black community. Think about some of the hip-hop music at the top of the charts; the songs that disrespect woman, and contains far too much explicit content that it has society desensitized. The pervasiveness of today' …

Rebuilding After Hurricane Katrina: The Big Easy, And The Long Road Home., Jennifer S. Boucher

Political Science Theses and Capstones

The objective of this study is to analyze the influences of demographic patterns, planning politics and funding disbursement processes in rebuilding New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina's storm surge engulfed several neighborhoods of Orleans Parish Louisiana, on August 29th 2005.Immediately following the storm surge, national opinion makers began debating the possibility of shrinking the footprint of New Orleans, as part of the rebuilding process. Although recovery efforts were begun almost immediately, at the five year anniversary of the cataclysmic natural disaster more than a hundred thousand of New Orleanians are still displaced. Utilizing regression analysis as a quantitative measure and qualitative …

Cotter, Joseph Seamon, 1861-1949 (Sc 378), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 378. Letter, 27 August 1934, from Joseph S. Cotter, Louisville, Kentucky, to James Tandy Ellis, a fellow poet, which relates an incident of Cotter’s early life.

Shirley, Latrel, B. 1989 (Fa 543), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text (click on "Additional Files" below) for Folklife Archives Project 543. Paper titled "The Bible Time Capsule" written by Latrel Shirley about Lisa Gail (Morrison) Shirley's Bible and the ephemera stored in it. Includes colored illustrations.

Reed, Ashlee Catara, B. 1986 (Fa 548), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text papers (click on "Additional Files" below) for Folklife Archives Project 548.  Contains three papers:  “Permanent Wave Machine,” “The Hot Comb” about African American hairstyling, and “The Telephone Switchboard,” about an early switchboard on display in Barren County, Kentucky. Includes color illustrations.  This project was a requirement for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University.

Early Black Migration And The Post-Emancipation Black Community In Cabell County, West Virginia, 1865-1871, Cicero Fain

History Faculty Research

West Virginia’s formation divided many groups within the new state. Grievances born of secession inflamed questions of taxation, political representation, and constitutional change, and greatly complicated black aspirations during the state’s formative years. Moreover, long-standing attitudes on race and slavery held great sway throughout Appalachia. Thus, the quest by the state’s black residents to achieve the full measure of freedom in the immediate post-Civil War years faced formidable challenges. To meet the mandates for statehood recognition established by President Lincoln, the state’s legislators were forced to rectify a particularly troublesome conundrum: how to grant citizenship to the state’s black residents …

Le Mélange Of Francophone Culture In William Wells Brown’S Clotel, Sandra Andrade

Undergraduate Review

In Clotel; Or, The President’s Daughter, William Wells Brown argues that for fugitive African American slaves France represented freedom. This connection between African Americans and France that is familiar to many Americans in the twentieth century was existent at the time of Brown’s own escape. The Francophone culture became a major motivator in the author’s personal life and also in his writings. This project covers many themes, including the “tragic mulatta”, American identity, American freedom and slavery, and explores readings from Anna Brickhouse’s Transamerican Literary Relations and the Nineteenth-Century Public Sphere, and Eve A. Raimon’s The Tragic Mulatta …

Waiting To Exhale, Kaavonia Hinton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) The Story: Savannah Jackson’s sister Sheila tells Savannah about a business owner named Lionel, and Lionel invites Savannah to attend a New Year’s Eve party. As Savannah gets ready to ring in 1990, she reflects on her annoyance with Sheila and their mother, who have suggested that Savannah is miserable because she does not have a husband and does not live closer to her family. She realizes she does not need a man to validate her but admits that, as she broke up with Kenneth Dawkins four years ago, she wants to be in love again

Choosing My Best Thing: Black Motherhood And Academia, Kaavonia Hinton-Johnson

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) Scholars argue that White feminist theoretical undertakings concerning mothering are not appropriate for studying Black mothers because they rarely take race and culture into consideration (Collins, 1991; Joseph, 1991). Collins (1994) argues that the experiences of Black mothers are paramount to any inclusive discussion about mother/child relationships. Scholars who have turned their attention to the Black mother often do so via literary works and/or criticism (see, for example, Crews, 1996; Morrison, 1987; Wade-Gayles, 1984; Washington, 1990; Williams, 1986) or in reality (Collins, 1991, 1994; Roberts, 1997a). However, a computerized search for studies on the Black mother produces literature …

How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Kaavonia Hinton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) The Story: Stella Payne is an ambitious African American woman who holds masters degrees in fine arts and in business administration. A successful analyst for a large investment firm, she makes more than $200,000 per year and has an impressive portfolio. Despite her accomplishments, she no longer finds her career satisfying and feels her life is simply boring and predictable. Anxious to get a respite from single motherhood, she watches her eleven-year-old son, Quincy, board a plane to Colorado, where he will spend a few weeks with his father

Shifting Blackness: How The Arts Revolutionize Black Identity In The Postmodern West, Reginald Eldridge Jr

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The contemporary experiences of racially marginalized people in the West are affected deeply by the hegemonic capitalist Orthodox cultural codes, or episteme, in which blackness operates as the symbol of Chaos. As it relates to people of African descent, these affects are marked by a denial of the black person's full status as an unproblematic subject, by ontological voids arising from the practice of enslavement over the past centuries, and by problems of representation within the West, where examples and points of reference for black identity are always tied up with conflicting interests.

Utilizing Sylvia Wynter's model of the Ceremony …

"Their Past In My Blood": Paule Marshall, Gayl Jones, And Octavia Butler's Response To The Black Aesthetic, Williamenia Miranda Walker Freeman

Dissertations

Paule Marshall’s The Chosen Place, The Timeless People (1969), Gayl Jones’ Corregidora (1975), and Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979) enhance our conceptualization of black aestheticism and black nationalism as cultural and political movements. The writers use the novel as genre to question the ideological paradigm of a black nationalist aesthetic by providing alternative definitions of community, black women’s sexuality, and race relations. Because of the ways in which these writers respond to black aestheticism and black nationalism, they transform our understanding of movements often perceived as sexist, racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic. An examination of their works reveals the need for additional …

Volume 3 - Issue 1: La Créole - A Journal Of Creole History & Genealogy, Lynette Dolliole Johnson, Belmont F. Haydel Ph.D, Kevin Servat, Jari Christopher Louis Honora, Lolita Villavasso Cherrie, Catherine Ladnier, Keila V. Dawson Ph.D, Ina Fandrich Ph.D, Bruce Chesse, Marvin Chachere, Anita R. Paul, Haleemon Shaik Felton, Sheila Prevost

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.

Black Lesbians In The 70s, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

During the initial planning session for In Amerika They Call Us Dykes: Lesbian Lives in the 70s Spring Series, there was lack of clarity about the activity of Black Lesbians in the early part of the 1970s. The aim for Black Lesbian Herstory in the 70s: An At Home Tour and Guide to the Black Lesbian Herstory of the Collection was to present information to the lesbian community and increase Black Lesbian invisibility.

Hines, Thomas Collier, Jr. (Fa 7), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 7. Interviews conducted by Thomas Hines. Includes intervewis with Sarah Alice (Marcum) Roemer. The interviews include information about Alice Roemer's life, inlcuding her childhood, education, work and family experiences, with special emphasis on Thanksgiving customs.

Passing For Black: Coon Songs And The Performance Of Race, Patricia R. Schroeder

English and Creative Writing Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Aa Ms 05 Cummings Guest House Register Finding Aid, Karin A. France

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

The Cummings family of Old Orchard Beach, Maine, ran a guest house from 1923 until 1993. Register in which guests signed themselves in or were signed in by staff at the Cummings Guest House, 110 Portland Ave., Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Includes signatures of family members who attended reunions after the Guest House ceased operation.

Date Range:

1923-1998

Size of Collection:

1 ft.

The Obama Effect On American Discourse About Racial Identity: Dreams From My Father (And Mother), Barack Obama's Search For Self, Suzanne W. Jones

English Faculty Publications

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Joseph Curl reported that the Obama organization "would not answer when asked why the biracial candidate calls himself black," replying only that the question didn't "seem especially topical." Biracial ancestry and racial identity are still sensitive subjects in the United States, not suitable for sound bites. But they are perfect topics for the introspective musings of an autobiography, and Barack Obama must have thought he had answered this question in depth in Dreams from My Father (1995). In his introduction, Obama hesitates to use the term "autobiography" because it connotes, he says, "a certain closure"; …

Invisible Dread, From Twisted: The Dreadlock Chronicles, Bertram D. Ashe

English Faculty Publications

This excerpt traces the issues and process surrounding the dreadlocking of an Afri­can-American professor's hair. The personal history leading up to the decision to grow locks is briefly addressed, as is the experience of getting twisted for the first time and some reactions to the new hairstyle. Twisted discusses issues of cultural authenticity and academic nonconformity. It examines dreadlocks as a pathway to explore black identity, but in opposing ways: the act of locking ones hair does dis­play unconventional blackness - but it also participates in a preexisting black style. To what extent, the excerpt asks, can the adoption of …

Rhythms Of Rebellion: Artists Creating Dangerously For Social Change, Susan J. Erenrich

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

On December 14, 1957, after winning the Nobel Prize for literature, Albert Camus challenged artists attending a lecture at the University of Uppsala in Sweden to create dangerously. Even though Camus never defined what he meant by his charge, throughout history, artists involved in movements of protest, resistance, and liberation have answered Camus’ call. Quite often, the consequences were costly, resulting in imprisonment, censorship, torture, and death. This dissertation examines the question of what it means to create dangerously by using Camus’ challenge to artists as a starting point. The study then turns its attention to two artists, Augusto Boal …

Stressful Life Events And Interpersonal, Religious, And Spiritual Changes, Paul Murdock

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Survivors of stressful life events and traumatic experiences often report positive psychological changes “...as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life circumstances” (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004, p. 1). Three often reported areas of growth include having a greater appreciation for life in general, new priorities, and an increased significance placed on interpersonal, spiritual or religious issues. Despite reports of positive changes, the literature on stress-related growth (SRG) is inconclusive as to whether SRG is an illusion or represents actual change. For example, no studies to date appear to use longitudinal data, objective indictors, or behavioral measures of change. …

Volume 2 - Issue 1: La Créole - A Journal Of Creole History & Genealogy, Camille L. Naudin, Jari Christopher Louis Honora, Dr. Raphael Cassimere, Fatima Shaik, Isaiah Edwards, Eugenia Adams

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.

'Roots Run Deep Here': The Construction Of Black New Orleans In Post-Katrina Tourism Narratives, Lynnell L. Thomas

American Studies Faculty Publication Series

This article explores the emergent post-Katrina tourism narrative and its ambivalent racialization of the city. Tourism officials are compelled to acknowledge a New Orleans outside the traditional tourist boundaries – primarily black, often poor, and still largely neglected by the city and national governments. On the other hand, tourism promoters do not relinquish (and do not allow tourists to relinquish) the myths of racial exoticism and white supremacist desire for a construction of blacks as artistically talented but socially inferior.

Campbellsville - Taylor County, Kentucky Oral History Project (Fa 202), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 202. Project includes 22 interviews with African Americans concerning their lives as Taylor County, Kentucky residents. Interviews are on compact discs with interviewer's notes included. Topics discussed include: family life, when and why they live in Taylor County, childhood experiences, community involvement and personal opinions about Taylor County.