African American Studies Commons^™

A Name Change May Be A Start, But It Is Not Enough, Leah D. Williams

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Since the broadcast killing of George Floyd by four Minneapolis police officers on May 25, all levels of government, and institutions of every kind, have scrambled with breakneck speed to confront their own ties to America’s most deeply entrenched demons: White supremacy and systematic racism. Washington and Lee has certainly not been exempt from this reckoning. A majority of its faculty and student body have already passed resolutions calling for the removal of Robert E. Lee’s name from the university. As a direct descendent of those enslaved by the school, I commend these resolutions; yet, I strongly offer that a …

Talk This Way: A Look At The Historical Conversation Between Hip-Hop And Christianity, Joshua Swanson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Christianity and Hip-Hop culture are often said to be at odds with one another. One is said to promote a lifestyle of righteousness and love, while the other is said to promote drugs, violence, and pride. As a result, the public has portrayed these two institutions as conflicting with no willingness to resolve their perceived differences. This paper will argue that there has always been a healthy conversation between Hip-Hop and Christianity since Hip-Hop’s inception. Using sources like Hip-Hop lyrics, theologians, historians, autobiographies, sermons, and articles that range from Ma$e to Tipper Gore, this paper will look at the conversation …

You Are Resilient: Trauma-Informed, Strengths-Based Treatment For Low-Ses, Urban Youth, Courtney Molina

Dissertations

The focus in this review was to explore the benefits and optimal use of trauma-informed, strengths-based care for the therapeutic treatment of low-socioeconomic status (SES), urban youth. Specific focus was given to evidence-based research on the treatment of emotional and behavioral dysregulation among low-SES, urban youth. The review was guided by the following research questions: How can emotional and behavioral dysregulation be symptoms of trauma among low-SES, urban youth; What makes trauma-informed and strengths-based care optimal for the treatment of low-SES, urban youth with dysregulation; and What are clear guidelines for providing trauma-informed, strengths-based care to low-SES, urban youth with …

Confederate Statues Are Monuments To The ‘Lost Cause’ Cult Of White Supremacy, Judith Ezekiel

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Remembering John Lewis 07-18-2020, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

White Saviors, Brandon Hasbrouck

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

It is time for Washington and Lee University to drop both George Washington and Robert E. Lee from the University name. The predominantly White faculty at Washington and Lee recently announced that it will petition the Board of Trustees to remove Lee from the University name. This is the first time in Washington and Lee’s history that the faculty has drafted such a petition. It is worth exploring why the faculty has decided to make a collective statement on Lee now and why the faculty has not included a demand to drop Washington in their petition. The answer is simple—it …

Kobe Bryant, Benjamin Shultz

History in the Making

No abstract provided.

Toni Morrison, Cindy Ortega

History in the Making

No abstract provided.

The Shallow End Of The Deep South: Civil Rights Activism In Arkansas, 1865-1970, Sarah Riva

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

On April 7, 1968, Governor Winthrop Rockefeller claimed that “Arkansas today stands at the threshold of leading the nation...for a better America,” The Republican Arkansas Governor spoke on the steps of the state capitol at a memorial for the beloved civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. who had been assassinated three days earlier. Rockefeller’s claim that Arkansas could lead the nation came just two years after the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formally ended its work in the state to improve racial equality. Their efforts had seen widespread acceptance of integrated public facilities, increased voter registration and more meaningful …

Colonized Loyalty: Asian American Anti-Blackness And Complicity, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt

Faculty Publications

In this essay, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstad argues that solidarity between and within communities of color remains our only chance to fight against the brutal and insidious forces of racism, white supremacy and racial capitalism.

African American Women In The Domestic Service Industry During Reconstruction. An Intersectional Analysis, Kathryn Small

MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Conference

African American Women in the Domestic Service Industry during Reconstruction. An Intersectional Analysis.

My paper focuses on the experiences of African American women, within the workplace, during Reconstruction. Whilst the Civil War resulted in the emancipation of the African American population, the day-to-day attainment of freedom posed a very different reality, most notably in respect of limited opportunities for economic advancement. All working women of this time were subjected to discrimination. However, black women were especially discriminated against due to their race. Most markedly, this can be seen in the fact that work opportunities available to black women were restricted …

Stealin' The Meetin': Black Education History & The Black Panthers' Oakland Community School, Robert P. Robinson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation frames the Black Panthers' Oakland Community School (OCS) as a convergence of Black self-determination/Black Power, Black education history, and curriculum studies. Drawing from widely-cited archives, rarely-cited archives, oral history, periodicals, and secondary source material, the proposed study extends the OCS narrative by tracing its curricular trajectory and highlighting the voices of students, parents, and staff. It considers how the school’s history provides examples of educational practices—such as restorative justice and culturally relevant pedagogy—that would not become named or popularized in mainstream education until much later, asserting that histories of this sort can inform educational endeavors in the present. …

Blacklisted But Not Defeated: Jack Foner Returned To Academe After 30 Years And Made Colby A Leader In African-American Studies, Gerry Boyle

Colby Magazine

Colby hired Jack Foner and in a single stroke, a then nearly all-white liberal arts college in Maine became home to one of the first African-American Studies programs in the country.

Reconciling With Slavery In The United States: An Evolving Narrative, Jamie Phlegar

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This project addresses two strands of inquiry that spring from this issue of evolving race relations in the U.S. First, I examine how Americans talk about the history of slavery in the U.S. What rhetorical strategies are employed when slavery is discussed and/or debated in public history contexts and beyond? Second, I examine talk about the future of race relations in the context of the legacy of slavery. Specifically, I am interested in exploring what rhetorical strategies are employed when discussing the potential for reparations in mainstream arenas.

'The Once Peaceful Little Town:' Edmondson, Arkansas, And The Decline Of African American Landownership, Samuel Morris Ownbey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the systematic dispossession of African American property by white planters in the Arkansas Delta. It argues white planters, backed by a legal system favorable to their interests, expropriated the black land in the once flourishing community of Edmondson, Arkansas. Founded in 1902 by African American business and political leaders, the Edmondson Home and Improvement Company purchased farmland and town lots and began to sell or rent the land to African Americans coming to the area. Located in Crittenden County, Edmondson represented black defiance in the face of Jim Crow laws and white supremacy. The town consisted of …

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

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 …

Black Delilahs: Black Female Sexuality And Resistance In Progressive Era New York City, Kayla J. Smith

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

Black Delilahs traces a history of policing and criminalizing of black women’s sexuality in Progressive Era New York City. By analyzing vaudeville posters, joke books, blues music, newspapers, vice committee records, and reformatory records, this project provides a historiography of respectability politics and the sociocultural norms and practices that limited American society’s freedom of sexual expression. It subsequently explores how working-class black women engaged with commercial, public, and private urban spaces normatively associated with vice, deviancy, and disreputability in ways that subverted these expectations of respectability and empowered them. These women used creative ways to express their sexuality within the …

Red Hill Cemetery Project: Creating A Cultural Heritage Database, Franciso Mendoz, Laura Bullard, Andrew Pemberton, David Sheffler

Showcase of Osprey Advancements in Research and Scholarship (SOARS)

This age of booming technological advancement has brought a breadth of new opportunities for understanding and documenting history, from digital mapping to database-building capabilities unrivaled in past historical efforts, opportunities which the research team behind the Red Hill Cemetery Project are utilizing in the effort to develop a virtual cemetery. The research team, in cooperation with the Okefenokee Heritage Center and the community of Waycross, seek to develop a scholarly understanding, grounded in consideration of the community and its history, of the oldest African-American cemetery in Waycross, Georgia. The physical cemetery, now overgrown and suffering from decades-long neglect and vandalism, …

“A Matter Of Personal Pride”: How African American Football All-Stars Exposed Bigotry In New Orleans, Including Didactic Considerations And Lesson Plans, Andreas Hofbauer

Center Austria Research

Throughout African American history, sport has played a major role in promoting integration and full participation in American society beyond the playing fields or courts. In the 1960s, after the first wave of African American athletes entering the white-dominated collegiate and professional sports leagues, active forms of protest against racial inequality in the US became gradually more relevant. Though in relatively small numbers, some African American athletes across various sports have used their privileged situation to voice the need for a revision of the system which has failed to represent and serve their people throughout American history.

This paper focuses …

Neighborhood Change Within New Jersey: The Evolutionary History That Led To The New Newark, David Medina

Student Publications

As Newark lies 10 miles west of Manhattan, there is an increased encroachment from investors and gentrifies as surrounding cities such as Hoboken and Jersey City become too expensive and overcrowded. Known as the “Brick City”, Newark has history dating back to 1666. Leading up to World War II Newark was thriving, until an increase in suburban development and white flight that altered the race demographic. After years of racial stigma, the history of Newark is at risk as gentrification and neighborhood change looms over the city and its 282,862 residents, many of which are minorities.

Racialized Tax Inequity: Wealth, Racism, And The U.S. System Of Taxation, Palma Joy Strand, Nicholas A. Mirkay

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This Article describes the connection between wealth inequality and the increasing structural racism in the U.S. tax system since the 1980s. A long-term sociological view (the why) reveals the historical racialization of wealth and a shift in the tax system overall beginning around 1980 to protect and exacerbate wealth inequality, which has been fueled by racial animus and anxiety. A critical tax view (the how) highlights a shift over the same time period at both federal and state levels from taxes on wealth, to taxes on income, and then to taxes on consumption—from greater to less progressivity. Both of these …

The Impact Of Marriage On African American Educators In Bexar County, 1880-1950, Jordan Lejeune

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2020 (Archived)

As a society, we are still having discussions about whether or not women “can have it all.” We have not moved past gendered expectations for men and women. Mollie Carey Brown, Fanny Ellis Starnes, and Lady Henrietta Boyd were Black educators in the San Antonio public school system in the late nineteenth century who have incredible stories that may feel familiar to some women today. Mollie Carey Brown and Fanny Ellis Starnes both got married and ended their careers. Henrietta Boyd never got married, and remained a teacher until retirement. All three of these women had to fight gender expectations …

G. William Bouldin, More Than A Businessman, Mario M. Gutierrez

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2020 (Archived)

When the average person thinks about African American history, the two major historical subjects that possibly comes to their mind are slavery and the civil rights movement. I believe this is the case because African American history is a subject with a limited curriculum in the history classes of our public schools. Possible causes for this problem could be budget restrictions, limited amounts of time in classes, or even to ‘soften’ the reality of American history. Despite these reasons, the undeniable fact is that African American History has many unresearched areas within the subject. For instance, the historical study of …

Research On The Demographic Changes Around San Antonio's St. Paul Square From 1880 To 1920, Christopher D. Oliver

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2020 (Archived)

We often hear of the massive boom in population experienced by various Northern cities during the Great Migration (1916-1960), where over 6 million African Americans would migrate across the country in search for better opportunities. What we do not often hear is how such migration affected the larger Southern cities. Such a seemingly important and relevant question deserves to be covered extensively. San Antonio, while a large city (and once the largest in Texas), has been left unexplored on this question, while other Texas cities like Houston are receiving some coverage on this topic. I want to begin answering this …

The Unheard Stories Of Former San Antonio Slaves, David R. Harris

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2020 (Archived)

While the end of slavery in America was a huge step to provide equality to all, the livelihood of former slaves after the Civil War took many different paths, some of those paths ended up in San Antonio, Texas.

Founding Of Naacp In San Antonio 1918: A Call To Activism, Eric D. Nolden

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2020 (Archived)

Enter the Progressive era a time of social activism and political reform, an era aimed at finding a cure for industrialization and urbanization nationally. There were also societal issues that needed to be resolved, issues of governmental corruption, government machines and their overseers, women’s suffrage, child labor laws, the practice of Eugenics, and safer food and medicine for all citizens. Although the reformers of the era were trying to create a “Great America,” the Progressive era encouraged discriminatory rules; rules which aided in the re-emergence of the KKK and lay the foundation for the Immigration Act of 1917. Policies that …

Progressive Era Activism For Black Orphanage, Isaac L. Godoy

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2020 (Archived)

A group of American citizens that are historically overlooked and underserved are impoverished and homeless children. According to the United States Census Bureau as of 2017, when this group is divided by race, the number of African-American children that live in poverty is higher than others. This kind of data has only been available since 1959. Previously, the federal government did not have any involvement in assisting with any services to impoverished children came in the form of community activism. The most prominent institutions to provide care to homeless children were in the form of orphanages.

The Life Of A Former Slave In Bexar County, Karina De Hoyos

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2020 (Archived)

The Slave Narrative Collection from the WPA Federal Writers’ Project, housed at the Library of Congress, has over 2,300 first-person accounts and 500 black and white photographs of people who were born into slavery.Numerous historians have relied on these narratives to help them in their work to have a better understanding of slavery. Many people did not know how, or even where, to start their new lives, but they knew they needed to find a way to make a living, or ultimately seek work from their former masters. Despite numerous obstacles in their lives before and after the Civil War, …

The History Of The Cameo Theater, Patricia M. Gutierrez

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2020 (Archived)

On March 20, 2015, Pastor Doug Robins held a church service in the Cameo Theater. He remembered one of the parishioners stating, “Hey, Pastor Doug, I went to a rave and I did Ecstasy right there, and now I’m coming to church here.” From its founding in 1940, up to the present day, the Cameo Theater has been a host to a number of diverse events, everything from religious services to raves. On June 11, 1940, the Cameo Theater opened and was owned by Carl Milentz.