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Full-Text Articles in African American Studies

"At The Peril Of Our Lives": Race, Citizenship, And Philadelphia's 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic., Abigail Posey May 2021

"At The Peril Of Our Lives": Race, Citizenship, And Philadelphia's 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic., Abigail Posey

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

The late-eighteenth century was a crucial time for determining the social role of black people in Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania at large. In 1780, the state legislature began a gradual abolition process that contributed to a growing free Black population in the city, while many other Black Philadelphians remained in bondage. Their livelihoods remained restricted by anti-Black laws that contributed to the overall poor health of Black Philadelphians. As the yellow fever epidemic began in 1793, Philadelphia’s medical community supported racist scientific myths that Black people possessed a natural immunity to yellow fever. In an agreement with the city and Dr. …


Practicing Pan-Africanism: West Indians And Governance In Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana., Nicholas C. Mcleod Aug 2020

Practicing Pan-Africanism: West Indians And Governance In Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana., Nicholas C. Mcleod

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

After gaining independence from England, Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, was transparent in his embrace of the entire African diaspora and actively recruited a number of Pan-African West Indian intellectual-activists, who mentored and advised him as a student in London, to help build Ghana as a Pan-Africanist state. Among these West Indian intellectual-activists were George Padmore, W. Arthur Lewis, T. Ras Makonnen, and Jan Carew. For these West Indians the appeal of Ghana was neither symbolic nor ceremonial, but rather an opportunity to achieve the ultimate objective of the Pan-African movement, a free and self-governed African continent. In …


Geographic Imaginaries Of Urban Spatial Segregation: A Case Study Of The West End Neighborhoods In Louisville, Kentucky., Amber Dock May 2020

Geographic Imaginaries Of Urban Spatial Segregation: A Case Study Of The West End Neighborhoods In Louisville, Kentucky., Amber Dock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to translate the framework of geographic imaginaries into an urban context in order to capture a narrative of how residents conceptualize and experience segregation. This framework is rooted in an investigation of local discourses as they exist within a specific social, political, and historical context. Institutionalized segregation and structural racism are the foundations on which the American urban context studied here was built upon. This study employs multiple methods, including contextualizing the study area, analyzing discursive content, and visualizing the results. The results of these analyses included empirically connecting concentrations of protected classes to …


An Actor's Process In Bridging The Gap Between First-Generation And Multi-Generational African-American Identities., Mutiyat Ade-Salu May 2020

An Actor's Process In Bridging The Gap Between First-Generation And Multi-Generational African-American Identities., Mutiyat Ade-Salu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reflects my process assimilating into the role of Chelle in the production of Detroit '67 at the University of Louisville. Although there have been instances of actors crossing lines of gender, nationality, race, and even sexuality, to perform roles in contemporary theatre, discussion about generational differences is almost non-existent. Through historical research, first-hand interviews, and conventional acting methods, I explore the world of my role, searching for spirituality, authenticity, and identity. Additionally, I explain my use of The WAY Method ®, a process I began creating in 2014 to help actors be clear with who they are before …


Queering Black Greek-Lettered Fraternities, Masculinity And Manhood : A Queer Of Color Critique Of Institutionality In Higher Education., Antron Demel Mahoney Aug 2019

Queering Black Greek-Lettered Fraternities, Masculinity And Manhood : A Queer Of Color Critique Of Institutionality In Higher Education., Antron Demel Mahoney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing heavily on Roderick Ferguson’s (2012) theory of institutionality, this dissertation constructs a counter-historical genealogy of racialized gender in higher education and U.S. society through the formation of black Greek-lettered fraternities. Ferguson argues that with the insurgence of minority resistance globally and domestically during the mid-twentieth century, hegemonic power took a new form. Instead of rejecting minority difference, power’s new network attempted to work through and with minority difference in an effort to absorb and restrict these radical formations within state, capital and academy frameworks—producing narrow or one-dimensional minority subjectivities. Established at the turn of the twentieth century, black Greek-lettered …


African American Grandmothers As The Black Matriarch : You Don't Live For Yourself., Tanisha Nicole Stanford May 2018

African American Grandmothers As The Black Matriarch : You Don't Live For Yourself., Tanisha Nicole Stanford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined historical and contemporary roles of African American grandmothers within the familial system, and their socio-psychological experiences. The primary method of data collection was semi-structured, conversational style interviews with an oral history aspect. There were six grandmothers interviewed, two from the midwest region of the United States, and four from the southern region. The findings reveal stories that corroborate with the literature on the role of women in African American families and that of the Black matriarch, considering their strength are not inherent but necessary. They are not born matriarchs or strong black women, they become that person …


Self-Executed Dramaturgy : A Journey With Miss Ida B. Wells., Sidney Michelle Edwards May 2018

Self-Executed Dramaturgy : A Journey With Miss Ida B. Wells., Sidney Michelle Edwards

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents my experience with the production of Miss Ida B. Wells by Endesha Ida Mae Holland. I used self-executed dramaturgy to enrich my process as an actor and create multiple vocally and physically dynamic historical characters. Throughout this document, I explore how my personal acting process and development as an artist are heavily influenced by the practices of the Alexander Technique. I discuss the unique challenges that I faced with scoliosis and vocal trauma and how I used the training I received during my graduate career to address those challenges. My personal account details the specific methods by …


Southern Veils : The Sisters Of Loretto In Early National Kentucky., Hannah O'Daniel Dec 2017

Southern Veils : The Sisters Of Loretto In Early National Kentucky., Hannah O'Daniel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the experiences of Roman Catholic women who joined the Sisters of Loretto, a community of women religious in rural Washington and Nelson Counties, Kentucky, between the 1790s and 1826. It argues that the Sisters of Loretto used faith to interpret and respond to unfolding events in the early nation. The women sought to combat moral slippage and restore providential favor in the face of local Catholic institutional instability, global Protestant evangelical movements, war and economic crisis, and a tuberculosis outbreak. The Lorettines faced financial, social, and cultural pressures—including an economic depression, a culture that celebrated family formation …


How The City Of Indianapolis Came To Have African American Policemen And Firemen 80 Years Before The Modern Civil Rights Movement., Leon E. Bates Aug 2016

How The City Of Indianapolis Came To Have African American Policemen And Firemen 80 Years Before The Modern Civil Rights Movement., Leon E. Bates

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores a series of events that occurred in the spring of 1876. The relationship between the Indianapolis city government, the Marion County Courts, the Indianapolis Police Department, and the African American community came together to usher in changes never before envisioned. The Indianapolis Police Department (IPD) was formed in 1855, then disbanded 12 months later in a political dispute. From 1857-to-1876, the IPD was all white. These changes took place as the Reconstruction era was coming to a close. The first Ku Klux Klan was at its apex, terrorizing black communities, and Jim Crow was coming into its …


Race, Rebellion, And Arab Muslim Slavery : The Zanj Rebellion In Iraq, 869 - 883 C.E., Nicholas C. Mcleod May 2016

Race, Rebellion, And Arab Muslim Slavery : The Zanj Rebellion In Iraq, 869 - 883 C.E., Nicholas C. Mcleod

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the ninth century, enslaved Africans from the east coast of Africa, called the Zanj, revolted for nearly fifteen years in southern Iraq against their Arab slave masters and challenged the social order of the Abbasid Empire. This thesis is a socio-historical investigation on the role that race played in starting the Zanj Rebellion of 869 C.E. It examines the Arab Islamic slave trade and the racial stratification experienced by blacks in the early centuries of Islamic history in conjunction with the Zanj Rebellion. The thesis applies a structural framework for analyzing race, to demonstrate the racialization process, prevalent racial …


No One Who Reads The History Of Hayti Can Doubt The Capacity Of Colored Men: Racial Formation And Atlantic Rehabilitation In New York City's Early Black Press, 1827-1841, Charlton W. Yingling Apr 2013

No One Who Reads The History Of Hayti Can Doubt The Capacity Of Colored Men: Racial Formation And Atlantic Rehabilitation In New York City's Early Black Press, 1827-1841, Charlton W. Yingling

Faculty Scholarship

From 1827 to 1841 the black newspapers Freedom’s Journal and the Colored American of New York City were venues for one of the first significant racial projects in the United States. To counter aspersions against their race, the editors of these publications renegotiated their community’s identity within the matrix of the Black Atlantic away from waning discourses of a collective African past. First, Freedom’s Journal used the Haitian Revolution to exemplify resistance, abolitionism, and autonomy. The Colored American later projected the Republic of Haiti as a model of governance, prosperity, and refinement to serve this community’s own evolving ambitions of …


The Hidden Help : Black Domestic Workers In The Civil Rights Movement., Trena Easley Armstrong Nov 2012

The Hidden Help : Black Domestic Workers In The Civil Rights Movement., Trena Easley Armstrong

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the 1960's, nearly ninety percent of black women in the South worked as domestic servants. While much has been written depicting the dehumanizing and exploitative conditions in which they lived, their contributions to human rights garnered from their subtle acts of resistance and specifically, their involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, has either been undocumented or documented quite minimally. Despite their historical roles and socioeconomic disadvantages, their reach for human agency was beneficial to society. This thesis examines their labor as domestic workers and their participation in the Civil Rights Movement using the qualitative research method of interviews and …


The Unknown Struggle : A Comparative Analysis Of Women In The Black Power Movement., Elizabeth Michele Jones May 2006

The Unknown Struggle : A Comparative Analysis Of Women In The Black Power Movement., Elizabeth Michele Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis comparatively analyzes the experiences and roles of women in the United States and Caribbean Black Power Movements. Using the Black Panther Party and Trinidadian National Joint Action Committee as case studies, the researcher isolates similarities and differences among women in these two regions of the African Diaspora. Black Feminist and Caribbean Feminist theoretical perspectives aide in understanding how the interlocking social forces of race, class, and gender impacted women participating in the Black Nationalist movement of the late 1960's and early 1970's.