African American Studies Commons^™

Defying Convention: Atypical Perspectives Of Slavery In Antebellum New Orleans, Amanda N. Carr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the first half of the nineteenth century, slavery became a vital economic component upon which the success of the southern states in America rested. Cotton was king, and slavery was the peculiar institution that ensured its dominance in the domestic and international markets of America. Popular portrayals, however, often neglect the complicated dynamics of American slavery and instead depict the institution in simplistic terms. The traditional view has emphasized an image of white southerners as slaveholders and blacks as slaves. In New Orleans, the lives of three men—all of whom were tied to slavery in varying capacities—reveal a much …

Initiating Race: Fraternal Organizations, Racial Identity, And Public Discourse In American Culture, 1865-1917, John D. Treat

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Drawing on ritual books, organizational records, newspaper accounts, and the data available from cemetery headstones and census records, this work argues that adult fraternal organizations were key to the formation of civic discourse in the United States from the years following the Civil War to World War I. It particularly analyzes the role of working-class white and African-American organizations in framing racial identity, arguing that white organizations gave up older, comprehensive ideas of citizenship for understandings of Americanism rooted in racism and nativism. Counterbalancing this development, now-forgotten African-American fraternal organizations were among the earliest advocates of Afrocentrism. These organizations, form …

Reconciling The Past In Octavia Butler's Kindred, Haley V. Manis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses the observations of Nancy J. Peterson on historical wounds as a springboard to discuss Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred and its use of both white and black characters to reexamine the origins of the historical wounds and why they are so difficult to deal with even today. Other scholarly works will be used to further investigate the importance of each character in the story and what they mean to the wound itself. Specifically, Dana is analyzed alongside the other main characters: Rufus, Alice, and Kevin. Though Dana’s relationships with these characters, Kindred’s version of the past can be …

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.

Eyes On The Prize: Delivering Archival Content With Synchronized Transcripts In Hydra, Irene Taylor, Shannon Davis

Central Plains Network for Digital Asset Management

Regarded as the definitive work on the Civil Rights Movement, the documentary series, Eyes on the Prize, has been seen by millions since its PBS debut in 1987. However, what remains unseen is the nearly 85 hours of interview outtakes that provide further insight into the series’ original stories of struggle, resistance, and perseverance. Through the Eyes on the Prize Digitization and Reassembly project, funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, Washington University Libraries has made the complete, never-before-seen interviews and TEI XML encoded, synchronized transcripts freely accessible through its newly developed Hydra digital repository.

This session …

A People’S Journey, A Nation’S Past: The National Museum Of African American History And Culture, Danielle E. Jones

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

On September 24, 2016, the National Museum of African American History and Culture was opened to the public after almost two decades of planning and more than a century of fighting for a memorial for African Americans. Starting in 1915, when a group of United States Colored Troops sought a memorial for their fallen soldiers, African Americans have worked to have their history remembered on a national scale. A congressional commission for a museum dedicated to African Americans was signed in 1929 by Calvin Coolidge, but the stock market crash in October prevented the museum from being built. The memorial …

Negotiating The Delta: Dr. T.R.M. Howard In Mound Bayou, Mississippi, William Jackson Southerland

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the racially segregationist practices and the integrationist, inclusionist formation of African American leader Dr. T.R.M. Howard during his tenure as a surgeon and entrepreneur in the all-black Mississippi Delta community of Mound Bayou, 1942-1956. The paper analytically investigates the careful racial negotiations that were required of Howard as he advanced a separatist but egalitarian economic and social plan for Delta blacks. This separatist plan, it is argued, is grounded in the racial pragmatism of the Seventh-day Adventist church which provided a bibliocentric, Tuskegee-inspired education to Howard from youth through medical school and beyond. Howard’s adherence to Adventist …

Friends Of Musselman Library Newsletter Fall 2016, Musselman Library

Friends of Musselman Library Newsletter

From the Dean (Robin Wagner)

Library Exhibits

GettDigital: Sports Reels

Research Reflections: The Gettysburg Superstar (Devin McKinney)

Remembering 9/12

Will Power: 400 Years After the Bard

Treasure Island (Robin Wagner)

Margin of Error

A Call to Activism in the Summer of '65 (Richard Hutch '67)

Digital Scholarship: The New Frontier (Julia Wall '19, Lauren White '18, Keira Koch '19)

Scrapbooks and Photo Albums: Snapshots of History (Clara A. Baker '30)

Soldiers' Scrapbooks (Laura Bergin '17)

A Book of Dreams (Alexa Schreier)

Who Do You Think You Are? (Timothy Shannon)

From Professor-Student to Collaborators (Jesse Siegel '16)

The Mysterious Easel Monument …

Attacking Multiple Fronts: The Tuskegee Airmen As Pioneers Of Military Integration, Kaylyn L. Sawyer

Student Publications

Military service has long been associated with citizenship, and blacks have been part of every American war since the founding of this nation. Five thousand fought in the Revolutionary War, 180,000 fought in segregated units during the Civil War, and 380,000 enrolled in World War One. Although black participation increased with each major conflict, only 42,000 of the blacks in World War One belonged to combat units, a result of 20th century racial tensions that turned opinion against the use of black soldiers. Segregation persisted within the military establishment, including military aviation, through World War Two. Within a span of …

Alleged Insanity: Frank Johnson Sr., Racial Injustice, And The Failure Of The Mental Health Care System In South Carolina, Jonathon P. Johnson

Senior Theses

This thesis is about Frank Johnson Sr. and the circumstances that led to his downfall as a farmer and father of six, to his tragic death in the isolation of a racially segregated mental institution 18 miles away from his home. Using his life and incarceration at the South Carolina State Park mental health facility, I argue that racial injustice contributed to his tragic death and the woefully inadequate treatment thousands of African Americans in South Carolina received during Jim Crow. Additionally, I argue that the tragic circumstances around my great grandfather’s institutionalization and death were part of an enduring …

Book Review - Working For Equality: The Narrative Of Harry Hudson, Kelly Ansley

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

"We Are Americans, Too:" Interracial Relations In Detroit's Postwar Auto Industry, Andrew C. Nosti

Student Publications

This analysis looks at the interracial relations and conflicts within the postwar Detroit auto industry. In doing so, it examines the role the UAW, the government, the corporations, and the workers themselves played, and how race and/or gender contributed to interactive negotiations within the employment sector at the time.

From The Ashes Of Glory: The Rise And Fall Of Jackson Ward, Jeffrey L. Lauck

Student Publications

This paper uses primary and secondary research to analyze the political, economic, and social factors that created Jackson Ward as a separate, alternative space for black Richmonders. In addition, this paper analyzes the key institutions that made up Jackson Ward as well as the reasons surrounding its decline following desegregation.

Engagement And Resistance: African Americans, Saudi Arabia And Islamic Transnationalisms, 1975 To 2000, Jeffrey Diamant

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since the 1960s, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has financed missionary efforts to Muslims around the world, attempting to spread a Salafi form of Islam that professes strict adherence to Islamic sacred scripture. The effects of this transnational proselytization have depended on numerous factors in “host countries.” This project explores the various impacts of Saudi transnational religious influence in the United States among African-Americans. By relying on previously unused documentary sources and fresh oral histories, it shows how Saudi “soft power” attempted to effect change in religious practices of African-American Muslims from 1975 through 2000. It provides the most detailed …

49-Cent Commemorative Stamp: National Museum Of African American History And Culture, United States Postal Service. Stamp Division

Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Stamp Collection

National Museum of African American History and Culture Commemorative Stamp – 49-cent Commemorative Stamp, sheet of 20 stamps. First issued September 24, 2016.

Owens, Nellie, 1912-2007 (Sc 3051), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and full text scan (click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3051. W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration) sewing notebook of Nellie Owens, Louisville, Kentucky, containing fabric swatches and sewing samples.

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 …

The Ethics Of Reparations For Slavery, Kyla A. Jermin

Philosophy Summer Fellows

Reparations has always been a lingering topic in American history – one that is heavily discussed, but never quite put into action. Though there are many who agree that payment is owed for slavery, or that a crime was committed, they are often dissuaded by various issues, or by the idea that reparations are “too divisive” and would encourage racial dissension. In my project, I address these arguments, and establish a case for reparations and the ethical responsibility behind it. My project explores themes of duty, responsibility, and compensation for wrongdoing as applied to the American slave trade. In this …

“If There Are Men Who Are Afraid To Die, There Are Women Who Are Not”: African American Women's Civil Rights Leadership In Boston, 1920-1975., Julie De Chantal

Doctoral Dissertations

Since the 1980s, narratives surrounding the Boston Busing Crisis focus on South Boston white working-class’s reaction to Judge Arthur W. Garrity's forced desegregation order of 1974. Yet, by analyzing the crises from such narrow perspective, the narratives leave out half of the story. This dissertation challenges these narratives by situating the busing crisis as the culmination of more than half a century of grassroots activism led by Black working-class mothers. By taking action at the neighborhood and the city levels, these mothers succeeded where the National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People and the Urban League had failed. …

Book Review - Abandonment In Dixie: Underdevelopment In The Black Belt, Allison Galloup

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Ms-194: Richard Hutch '67 Papers, Melanie L. Fernandes

All Finding Aids

This collection consists primarily of materials produced by SCOPE for SCOPE participants, correspondence between Richard Hutch and various companions, and publications regarding civil rights. Though aspects of the collection extend beyond 1965, it focuses most heavily on Hutch’s SCOPE experience during the summer of 1965 and does not provide great detail on other civil rights organizations. The collection provides an overview of the role that SCOPE played in the larger Civil Rights Movement, as well as valuable insight to the individual experience of a participant in the Civil Rights Movement. While the collection includes materials from Hutch’s time at Gettysburg …

Suburbs In Black And White: Race, Jobs & Poverty In Twentieth-Century Long Island, Tim Keogh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Suburbs in Black and White” examines how economic development shaped African American suburbanization on Long Island, New York from 1920 through 1980. After 1940, the fortunes of Long Island’s growing black population shifted from widespread poverty to upward social mobility, though by the 1960s, a divide emerged between the rising black middle class and black working poor, and distinctly ‘black’ suburbs emerged with problems familiar to postwar inner cities. While urban racial inequality is often framed in terms of housing segregation and the city/suburb divide, census and labor market data reveal that structural economic change across the New York metropolitan …

The Philadelphia Catto: Bridging The Racial Gap In The City Of Brotherly Love, Rachel Wyman

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to examine African American activist Octavius Valentine Catto's social and civic contributions to the African American community in Philadelphia and the nation during the Reconstruction era. Catto's militancy, courage, and devotion to the black cause, as a result of major religious and secular revolutionary ideology, offers an alternative view of the black experience in the North which was overshadowed by the myriad of research on Reconstruction in the South. Octavius Catto is part of a long tradition of black activists who led a wave of antislavery reform rooted in the secular political ideology of the American Revolution, …

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?: Food Inequlaity And Black Americans, Christina Foster

Capstone Collection

Food insecurity is an issue that plagues many people throughout the world. It only requires a brief search on the United Nation’s (U.N.) World Hunger Map to determine that this is indeed a worldwide crisis. Conversely, within the United States, the issue of hunger is often treated as “minimal” in comparison to other countries. A deeper inquiry into hunger within the U.S. reveals an even more disturbing connection: the role of white supremacy and systemic racism in regard to hunger. Academic research pertaining to food access is quite recent. Be that as it may, it is of no surprise that …

Barbara Brown Simmons (Ba 1969, Jd 1974), Unm Black Alumni Chapter Oral History Project

UNM Black Alumni Oral History Collection

Video of interview with Barbara Brown Simmons, who earned her BA from UNM in 1969 and her JD in 1974. She was the first Black woman to graduate from the UNM School of Law, and a cofounder of the UNM Alumni Association Black Alumni Chapter. Interview conducted by Marsha K. Hardeman. Interview runtime is 1 hour, 39 minutes and 2 seconds.

Two Strivings: Uplift And Identity In African American Rhetorical Culture, 1900-1943, Jansen Blake Werner

Theses and Dissertations

During the late nineteenth- and early twentieth century, the notion of “uplift” functioned as a major thematic within African American rhetorical culture. In this milieu, “uplift” generally connoted a sense of collective self-help. However, in contrast to more generalized reform efforts, uplift was expressed as a distinctly intraracial endeavor. That is, rather than overtly leveraging the dominant white society to enact legal or political reforms, uplift typically centered on the ways in which African Americans could enhance the quality of black life independent from white involvement.

Understood as public proposals for how African Americans could employ forms of self-help to …

Black Praxis: The Trace Of Jamesian Pragmatism In Duboisian Scholar Activism, Jerome D. Clarke

Student Publications

Philosophy and activism formed a mutualist relationship in regards to 20th-century Black American politics. Emancipatory theories undergirded the civil disobedience and reformist action of the entire century. W.E.B. DuBois, renowned African-American academic at the forefront of American and Pan-Africanist liberation movements, is often divorced from his originary philosophical roots. As he became the first Black PhD graduate of Harvard University, his mentor was philosopher and psychologist William James. James is the forefather of American Pragmatism, a school of thought still alive and dynamic in this day. DuBoisian scholars tend however to stress the German Idealist influences on DuBois’s thought. Informed …

An Unchained Analysis Of Racial Tension In America, Moriah Angott

Honors Projects

Modern race issues stem not only from the past but also from a lack of understanding and empathy for each other. How we talk about race will not only inform how we are able to move forward as a society, but it will also say a great deal about how we are evolving as human beings. It is important, and has been recognized as such, that black Americans have the freedom to grapple with that past, to understand it, and to feel connected to those ancestors who suffered in order for the foundation of this country to be built. Is …

Press Release: Civil Rights Trip Looks Back; Inspires Desire To Move Forward, College Communications

Reverend Charles Rice

News article detailing the 2016 "Religion and Civil Rights" annual class trip to historic sites in the American South, led by Reverend Charles Rice.

Carter, Lillie Mae (Bland), 1919-1982 (Mss 558), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 558. This collection documents native Kentuckian Lillie Mae (Bland) Carters’ work as a poet and public school teacher in Toledo, Ohio. It includes correspondence, publications, unpublished poems, and printed material pertinent to her educational career and achievements. Of particular note is a folder of letters and autographs from African American poet Langston Hughes.