African American Studies Commons^™

Café Con Mucha Leche: The Pasts, Presents, And Futures Of Puertoricanness And Puerto Ricanhood, Anthony Rosado

Masters Theses

The central theme of this text is self-governed naming. I am implementing Black feminist storytelling procedures to write and paint without the “white,” the “male” or the “elitist gaze.” I’m writing an anti-colonial historical narrative about the making of the Puerto Rican people. I am providing to the field of American Studies an Afrocentric narrative–and series of paintings–through an interdisciplinary study of the presence of the African in the Americas. Although many colonial narratives center Spain in histories of Puerto Rico and of Puerto Ricans. I’m rewriting my Afro Puertorriqueño ancestors’ abolition story and collecting my family’s oral histories. I …

Reframing Leadership Narratives Through The African American Lens, Marion Missy Mcgee

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Reframing Leadership Narratives through the African American Lens explores the context-rich experiences of Black Museum executives to challenge dominant cultural perspectives of what constitutes a leader. Using critical narrative discourse analysis, this research foregrounds under-told narratives and reveals the leadership practices used to proliferate Black Museums to contrast the lack of racially diverse perspectives in the pedagogy of leadership studies. This was accomplished by investigating the origin stories of African American executives using organizational leadership and social movement theories as analytical lenses for making sense of leaders’ tactics and strategies. Commentary from Black Museum leaders were interspersed with sentiments of …

Separate Places, Shared Spaces: Segregated Carnegie Libraries As Community Institutions In The Age Of Jim Crow (Presentation For The Southern History Association Annual Meeting, November 2018), Matthew R. Griffis

Publications and Other Resources

From the conference program: "This presentation explores how segregated Carnegie libraries in the south served as places of interaction, learning, and community-making for African Americans in the days of Jim Crow. Known then as “colored Carnegie libraries,” these institutions opened in eight southern states between 1904 and 1924 and were funded by Andrew Carnegie’s library development program of the early twentieth century. Some segregated Carnegie libraries operated for as many as six decades until, by the 1970s, most had been desegregated or permanently closed.

"Based on archival methods as well as newly completed oral history interviews, this presentation begins with …

2018-07-16 Oral History With Myrtle Ross, Matthew R. Griffis

Oral History Archive

Myrtle Jackson Ross was born in 1929 in Austin County, Texas, where her father worked as a cotton-picker. When she was about eight years-old, Ross’s family moved to Houston, settling on Mason Street in the city’s Fourth Ward. There, her father worked at a hospital and her mother worked as a homemaker. Ross graduated from the Gregory School on Victor Street before attending Booker T. Washington High School on West Dallas Street.

Ross was in high school when she began visiting Houston’s Colored Carnegie Library, which was situated directly behind Booker T. Washington High School. For Ross, the library served …

2018-06-02 Oral History With Willie Hartwell, Matthew R. Griffis

Oral History Archive

Willie Hartwell was born in 1942 Glenn, Texas and grew up in Houston, where she lived on Andrews Street in the city’s Fourth Ward. There, she graduated from the Gregory School before attending Booker T. Washington High School. Later moving to the Third Ward with her mother, Hartwell attended Miller Junior and Yates (now Jack Yates) Senior high schools.

Hartwell was about seven years-old when she and her younger brother happened upon the segregated Carnegie Branch library one afternoon on Frederick Street. Neither had visited a public library before. Located about seven city blocks from her home, the Carnegie Branch …

Making Voices Heard: Collecting And Sharing Oral Histories From Users Of Segregated Libraries In The South (Presentation For The Oral History Association Annual Meeting, October 2017), Matthew R. Griffis

Publications and Other Resources

From the conference program: "This presentation reviews the progress and objectives of a federally-funded, 3-year oral history project that explores how segregated Carnegie libraries were used as places of community-making, interaction, and learning for African Americans before integration in the 1960s. Known then as “Carnegie colored libraries,” these public libraries opened in eight southern states between 1900 and 1925 and were an extension of the well-known library development program funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Some operated for as many as six decades until, by the 1970s, most had closed or were integrated into the library systems of …

Buildings And Books: Segregated Libraries As Places For Community-Making, Interaction And Learning In The Age Of Jim Crow (Presentation For The Society For The History Of Authorship, Reading, And Publishing Annual Conference, June 2017), Matthew R. Griffis

Publications and Other Resources

From the conference program: "This presentation reviews the preliminary findings of a federally funded, 3-year historical study that explores how segregated Carnegie libraries were used as places of community-making, interaction, and learning for African Americans in the age of Jim Crow. Known then as "Carnegie Negro libraries," these public libraries opened in eight southern states between 1900 and 1925 and were an extension of the well-known library development program funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

"Drawing on archival sources, including newly completed oral history interviews with surviving library users, this presentation explores how these libraries helped foster a …

Secrets On Morgan Hill: A Story Of An Unlikely Friendship Amid An Apartheid South, Camille Kleidysz-Ferreira

Master of Arts in American Studies Capstones

Introduction

The Burden of History and Fiction

“How much of the burden of history can fiction bear?” – Margaret Walker

Comprehensive historical research can often become the inspiration for art. The greatest pieces of historical fiction, are a result of years of historic scholarship before the creation of a compelling historical narrative or fiction piece. Through my two-year ethnographic study and collection of oral histories of the black community, surrounding the historic Bethel A.M.E. church in Acworth, Georgia, I was told a story about a friendship between two little girls who remained friends until the end of their lives. What …

New Online Archive On Racially Segregated Libraries, Matthew R. Griffis

Publications and Other Resources

Matthew Griffis (matthew.griffis@usm.edu), Ph.D., an Assistant Professor in the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Southern Mississippi, has conducted extensive research as the lead investigator on racial segregation in public libraries in the South. His research has been digitized is now available online. The archive, made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services is entitled “The Roots of Community: Segregated Carnegie Libraries as Spaces for Learning and Community-Making in Pre-Civil Rights America, 1900-65.” Griffis’s primary area of research is the library as place, including library buildings as social architecture, public libraries as …

Capturing Their Stories: Collecting Oral Histories From Users Of Segregated Libraries In The South (Presentation For The Southern History Of Education Society Annual Meeting, March 2017), Matthew R. Griffis

Publications and Other Resources

From the conference program: "This presentation reviews the progress of a federally-funded, 3-year historical study that explores how segregated Carnegie libraries were used as places of community-making, interaction, and learning for African Americans in the days of Jim Crow. Known then as “Carnegie colored libraries,” these public libraries opened in eight southern states between 1900 and 1925 and were an extension of the well-known library development program funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Some operated for as many as six decades until, by the 1970s, most had closed or were integrated into the library systems of their larger …