African American Studies Commons^™

The Significance Of John S. Mbiti's Works In The Study Of Pan-African Literature, Babacar Mbaye

Babacar Mbaye

No abstract provided.

Mapping The Oratory Of Frederick Douglass, Olivia Macisaac, Peter Harrah, David Lewis, Lynette Taylor, Leann West, Matthew Young

Olivia MacIsaac

This project is a multidisciplinary study of Douglass’s speaking tours throughout his long public career as an abolitionist, human rights advocate, and politician. For this initial phase, our primary aim was data collection for which our research team sampled a single year from each of the six decades from the 1840s to the 1890s. This was the time period in which well-known runaway slave and civil rights leader Frederick Douglass toured the United States and Europe. The purpose of this study is to develop a spatial representation of the itinerary of Douglass’s speaking-related travels. This will not only enable us …

Ua1b2/1 A Commemoration Of Wku's Integration: 1956-2006, Howard Bailey, Monica G. Burke, John Hardin, Sherese Martin, Maxine Ray, C. J. Woods

Monica Burke

A publication that chronicles the history of WKU's desegregation efforts. This commemorative publication is also an historical document that highlights the prolific accomplishments of WKU African American graduates. The impact of Western's spirit on countless African American graduates and the Bowling Green community unfolds in the pages that follow. The joy of having access to an education, the struggles of transforming an institutional climate, the kindness of WKU faculty, staff, and students and the rewards of walking across the stage in Diddle arena are chronicled by those who experienced it firsthand.

Carter G. Woodson: The Early Years, 1875 – 1903, Burnis Morris

Burnis R. Morris

When Carter G. Woodson departed West Virginia in 1903 for the Philippines and other distant datelines, few people other than Woodson himself could have imagined his final destination. He would eventually enjoin millions to follow his lead in promoting African Americans’ contributions in history; however, the scholarly people in Washington, where he settled in 1909, laughed at him and predicted failure.

Becoming Belafonte: Black Artist, Public Radical, Judith Smith

Judith E. Smith

A son of poor Jamaican immigrants who grew up in Depression-era Harlem, Harry Belafonte became the first black performer to gain artistic control over the representation of African Americans in commercial television and film. Forging connections with an astonishing array of consequential players on the American scene in the decades following World War II—from Paul Robeson to Ed Sullivan, John Kennedy to Stokely Carmichael—Belafonte established his place in American culture as a hugely popular singer, matinee idol, internationalist, and champion of civil rights, black pride, and black power.

In Becoming Belafonte, Judith E. Smith presents the first full-length interpretive …

Desire And Disaster In New Orleans: Tourism, Race, And Historical Memory, Lynnell Thomas

Lynnell Thomas

Most of the narratives packaged for New Orleans's many tourists cultivate a desire for black culture—jazz, cuisine, dance—while simultaneously targeting black people and their communities as sources and sites of political, social, and natural disaster. In this timely book, the Americanist and New Orleans native Lynnell L. Thomas delves into the relationship between tourism, cultural production, and racial politics. She carefully interprets the racial narratives embedded in tourist websites, travel guides, business periodicals, and newspapers; the thoughts of tour guides and owners; and the stories told on bus and walking tours as they were conducted both before and after Katrina. …

The Young White Faces Of Slavery, Mary Niall Mitchell

Mary Niall Mitchell

No abstract provided.

Introduction To We All Got History: The Memory Books Of Amos Webber, Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] Who was this Amos Webber who assumed such a prominent role in this public, regional celebration of the black presence in American life? That he was a veteran was clear, but that alone did not account for his prominent position in that day's events. Certainly James Monroe Trotter, the eminent musician, author, and politician, William H. Carney, and William Dupree were all more widely known in the black North. How did a man such as Amos Webber, unknown beyond his own circle, the recipient of no awards or editorials in the local or national press, achieve such prominence in …

"The Real Ida May: A Fugitive Tale In The Archives", Mary Niall Mitchell

Mary Niall Mitchell

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Africana Studies: Multidisciplinary Perspectives On The African Experience, Marc Prou

Marc E. Prou

Introduction to Africana Studies: Multidisciplinary Perspectives is a rich collection of essays on Africana social and cultural history. Its purpose is to provide a thorough scholarly examination of Africa and its Diasporas. This book provides a general introductory survey of Africana Studies to undergraduate and graduate students alike.

Memory Of A Racist Past — Yazoo: Integration In A Deep-Southern Town By Willie Morris, Nick J. Sciullo

Nick J. Sciullo

Willie Morris was in many ways larger than life. Born in Jackson, Mississippi, he moved with his family to Yazoo City, Mississippi at the age of six months. He attended and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin where his scathing editorials against racism in the South earned him the hatred of university officials. After graduation, he attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship. He would join Harper’s Magazine in 1963, rising to become the youngest editor-in-chief in the magazine’s history. He remained at this post until 1971 when he resigned amid dropping ad sales and a lack of …

Dick Allen's Second Act, Mitchell J. Nathanson

Mitchell J Nathanson

It is hard to imagine a more polarizing figure in Philadelphia sports history than Dick Allen. Countless gallons of ink have been spilled in furtherance of trying to capture and explain Allen’s stormy relationship with the Phillies and the city of Philadelphia during his 1963-69 tenure with the club. Much less focus has been given, however, to his mid-Seventies return to Philadelphia amid circumstances that were seemingly far different than those in which he left it. Despite these purportedly changed circumstances, Allen departed Philadelphia in 1976 much as he had in 1969 – amid controversy and bad blood on both …

A. Philip Randolph And Boston's African-American Railroad Worker, James R. Green, Robert C. Hayden

James R. Green

On October 8, 1988, a group of retired Pullman car porters and dining car waiters gathered in Boston's Back Bay Station for the unveiling of a larger-than-life statue of A. Philip Randolph. During the 1920s and 1930s, Randolph was a pioneering black labor leader who led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. He came to be considered the "father of the modern civil rights movement" as a result of his efforts to desegregate World War II defense jobs and the military services. Randolph's importance as a militant leader is highlighted by a quote inscribed on the base of the statue …

Tupac In The Classroom: From Cointelpro To Critical Consciousness, Jesse Benjamin

Jesse Benjamin

No abstract provided.

Two Tales Of A City: Nineteenth-Century Black Philadelphia, Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] In the tension between Forging Freedom and Roots of Violence certain themes present themselves for further research and thought. Neither volume successfully analyzes the historical roots of the African-American class structure. This is especially evident in each book's treatment of the black middling orders. While neither defines the category with clarity, their basic assumption that small shopkeepers and regularly employed workers were critical to the community's ability to withstand some of the worst shocks of racism is important. The clash between these books also raises questions concerning the role of pre-industrial cultural values in the transition to industrial capitalism. …

Preface To Singing In A Strange Land, Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

Salvatore delves into the life of the one of the most influential clergyman in twentieth-century African-American religious life, from his 1915 origins as a poor Mississippi farmboy to his early years as a preacher in Tennessee to his 1950s rise to acclaim in Detroit. Along the way, Franklin's charismatic preaching style revolutionized the sermon yet he was no saint away from the pulpit. His encouragement to proclaim both faith and dignity in the black community helped bolster the civil rights movement.

[Review Of The Book William Johnson’S Natchez: The Ante-Bellum Diary Of A Free Negro], Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] To raise this issue of Johnson's silences and social isolation is not to engage in historical pity. He made choices from the options available to him and suffered the consequences as they developed. But his history underscores the fact that slavery generated a corresponding social system that was unforgiving to the individual caught in its contradictory currents. As Michael P. Johnson and James L. Roark suggest in Black Masters, their sensitive study of another slave owner and ex-slave, William Ellison of South Carolina, a purely personal solution to such volatile social relations proved impossible. What bound William Johnson to …

[Review Of The Book Meatpackers: An Oral History Of Black Packinghouse Workers And Their Struggle For Racial And Economic Equality], Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] The Halpern and Horowitz volume, Meatpackers, follows creditably in this oral history tradition, even if it does not approach the power and complexity of Rosengarten's work. Instead of focusing on one individual, the book presents selections culled from a massive collection of oral interviews conducted by the authors with more than 125 former members of the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA). The interviewees are black, white, and Hispanic, male and female, with records of activism in the union as far back as the 1930s and as recent as the 1980s. The events they recount occurred in five cities, …

[Review Of The Book The Trials Of Anthony Burns: Freedom And Slavery In Emerson's Boston], Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] The intellectual core of The Trials of Anthony Burns explores the connection between Ralph Waldo Emerson and the New England Transcendentalists and the abolitionist cause. Ideas effect social life, von Frank insists, and he examines that point in a rich analysis that weaves intellectual, religious, political, and cultural perspectives into a sophisticated and detailed narrative. Emersonians came to embrace abolitionist activity as a central component of their philosophical idealism, particularly during the i850s. In an interesting way, the Burns case called upon many of New England's social and cultural elites to rethink their understanding of the relationship between idea …

New Orleans Unveiled: Fanon And A Reconceptualization Of The Performative, Lynnell Thomas

Lynnell Thomas

This article examines Frantz Fanon's "Algeria Unveiled" as a reconceptualization of J. L. Austin's theory of the performative. Austin, whose examples of the performative all assume an equal, if not harmonious, relationship, overlooks instances of incompatibility and inequality. Fanon's post-colonial framework, in contrast, illustrates the markedly different types of intentions, uptake, and conventions which inform the speech act in cases of extreme inequality. In these cases, the powerless and seemingly voiceless use tacitly agreed upon conventions inappropriately to attain what they would not be able to have otherwise. Fanon's notion of the performative is used to explore the performative resistance …

A People's History Of Baseball, Mitchell J. Nathanson

Mitchell J Nathanson

Baseball is much more than the national pastime. It has become an emblem of America itself. From its initial popularity in the mid-nineteenth century, the game has reflected national values and beliefs and promoted what it means to be an American. Stories abound that illustrate baseball's significance in eradicating racial barriers, bringing neighborhoods together, building civic pride, and creating on the field of play an instructive civics lesson for immigrants on the national character. In A People's History of Baseball, Mitchell Nathanson probes the less well-known but no less meaningful other side of baseball: episodes not involving equality, patriotism, heroism, …

Nostalgia For The Liberal Hour: Talkin' 'Bout The Horizons Of Norman Jewison's Generation, Daniel Mcneil

Daniel McNeil

Atelier@Duke: Intellectuals And Activism, Joanne Braxton

Joanne Braxton

The Continuing Imperative Of Black Studies Interview W Jared Ball, Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua

Sundiata K Cha-Jua

Interview on Black/Africana Studies with Jared Ball for Black Agenda Radio

Actions Speak Louder Than Words - Nixon's Effect On School Desegregation, Demetri L. Morgan

Demetri L. Morgan, Ph.D.

A review of Preisdent Richard Nixon’s deeds rather than his rhetoric or policy stances, illuminates a previously under investigated reality that Nixon’s education civil rights record has been the most progressive and beneficial for the education of students of color to date. How can this be? As this presentation will outline, Nixon’s rhetoric and stances on education were symbolic measures to appease both the ‘silent majority’ and conservative southern democrats, which Nixon identified as vital to his election aspirations in the 1968 presidential campaign. This political ploy eventually collided with Nixon’s efforts to acquiesce to his campaign mantra and governing …

White College Students' Explanations Of White (And Black) Athletic Performance: A Qualitative Investigation Of White College Students, Harrison

Dr. C. Keith Harrison

No abstract provided.

A Conceptual Model Of Academic Success For Student-Athletes, Keith Harrison

Dr. C. Keith Harrison

Concern over the academic talent development of Division I student–athletes has led to increased research to explain variations in their academic performance. Although a substantial amount of attention has been given to the relationship between student–athletes and their levels of academic success, there remain critical theoretical and analytical gaps. The purpose of this article is to develop a conceptual model to understand and explain the cumulative processes and characteristics—as a whole and in stages—that influence academic success for Division I student–athletes. Research on student–athletes and academic success is reviewed and synthesized to provide a rationale for the basic elements of …

Introduction To The Special Issue Defending Ethnic Studies In Arizona: Obama, The Rise Of The Hard Right, Arizona And Texas And The Attack On Racialized Communities Studies, Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua

Sundiata K Cha-Jua

Arizona’s and Texas’s recent anti-ethnic studies enactments have a long and sordid history; they represent the culmination of Eurocentric, nativist and racist initiatives begun decades ago, though their roots go back nearly two hundred years. Arizona House Bill 2281 represents rightwing responses to the current national socioeconomic crisis and the state’s failing economy. According to Duane Campbell, a progressive political economist, “with little else to offer the unemployed, scapegoating immigrants has become a substitute in Arizona for having a real solution to solving the economic needs of its residents.” Collectively, HB 2281 and the Texas State Board of Education revisions …

Scholar-Baller: Student Athlete Socialization, Motivation, And Academic Performance In American Society, Keith Harrison

Dr. C. Keith Harrison

No abstract provided.

A Critical Race Analysis Of The Hiring Process For Head Coaches In Ncaa College Football, Keith Harrison

Dr. C. Keith Harrison

In this article, we respond to Singer’s (2005) challenge to sport management scholars to consider race-based epistemologies in conducting certain kinds of research in the field, as we use critical race theory (CRT) as a framework to analyze the Black Coaches & Administrators (BCA) Hiring Report Card (HRC) (Harrison & Yee, 2009). The BCA HRC was created as a result of the access discrimination that has historically taken place in college sport (Brooks & Althouse, 2000; Cunningham & Sagas, 2005), which has consequently contributed to the underrepresentation of racial minorities in the head coach position in college football. The HRC …