African American Studies Commons^™

Are Opinions On Abortion Based On Racial Attitudes?, Ashley Mueller

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

My specific research question that I will be addressing through my Honors Research Project is; Does one’s race influence their opinions and criminalization of abortion in the United States? In addition to this question I will be discussing if these views have changed over time depending on race, and how their backgrounds, due to their race, may differentiate these views.

Sheila Jackson And Ann Myers, Mark Naison

Oral Histories

Biographies:

Sheila Jackson was born in the Harlem Hospital and has one older sister. For her undergraduate studies, Jackson went to the HBCU Morgan State University. After completing her undergraduate studies, she pursued her graduate education at Fordham University, where she obtained her Professional Diploma in Educational Leadership and Administration. During this time, Jackson pledged to the Eta Omega Omega Chapter. Jackson later became deeply involved in the chapter, mentioning that she served as the chapter’s Baselius president. Finally, she retired as Deputy Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction in District 29 of Queens.

Ann Myers was born in Virginia. She …

Young African American Men's Conception Of Fatherhood Among Survivors Of Childhood Abuse, Ohan Patricia Carter

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Male survivors of abuse who become fathers themselves face challenges different from female survivors, such as conceptualizing their roles as providers and heads of households after the traumatic and often belittling experiences of abuse. However, very few researchers have studied the connection between child abuse and fatherhood, and none specific to young African American fathers. An interpretative phenomenological approach enabled exploration of how African American fathers who were abused as children, conceptualized and perceived their own experiences with fatherhood. The theoretical framework for this study was identity theory, which indicates that how people conceptualize a social role influences their actions …

The Effectiveness Of African American Male Faith-Based Juvenile Delinquency, Dewaun C. Martin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Southeast region of the United States is experiencing an increase in the amount of crime in the African American community particularly among juveniles. Furthermore, the rate of African American juveniles being arrested is higher than arrest rates among other races. This problem reveals the need for reformation and rehabilitation programs to reduce recidivism in the juvenile justice system. Research indicates that juveniles who have attachments to a conventional institution commit fewer delinquent acts. Although attachments to sports and other programs are positively associated with the social bond theory, it was unclear what aspects of the church program might influence …

Beyond The Rainbow: Predicting Intra And Intergroup Political Attitudes Of Latinx And Black Americans And The Potential For Cooperation And Conflict, Randall Wyatt

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation uses social psychological theory and methods to better understand the political attitudes of whites, Blacks, Latinx Americans and Asian Americans in the contemporary United States. Using quantitative methodology and survey research, I estimate the potential for cooperation and conflict between racial minorities and the political implications that these measures may have. I show that perceptions of competition with immigrants are strongly associated with anti-immigration preferences even among racial minorities such as Blacks and Latinx Americans, of who have a long history of migration to the United States. However, I also show that there is potential for interracial cooperation …

Student Success And Geography: An Analysis Of Contributing Factors That Determine College Academic Achievement And Persistence Of Black Males, Lamarcus D. Howard

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to analyze the relationship between academic and nonacademic determinants of academic achievement and persistence and to identify how university geographic location influences the likelihood of Black male persistence. Quantitative data was drawn from the 2012/14 Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS) Longitudinal Study (BPS: 12/14) conducted by the U.S. Department of Education National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) to explore third-year academic achievement and persistence for Black males. This study identified two research questions, guided by the theoretical frameworks of Tinto’s student institutional departure model and Astin’s Input-Environment-Output model to assess Black male decisions to stay …

Trajectory Of Trauma: The Experiences Of Black Girls In The School-To-Prison Pipeline, Heather Nicholson-Bester

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This critical ethnographic research utilizes participatory action research (PAR) and case studies to explore the impacts that zero-tolerance policies have had on the lives of Black girls and women. This work contributes to a small but growing body of work on the intersectional struggles faced by Black girls within the School-to-Prison Pipeline. An aim of this research was to work with the participants to amplify their voices and center them as experts on their own lives. Working with a small sample of three girls and women enabled the creation of detailed narratives of their experiences. These narratives point to the …

A Qualitative Study: Black Male College Students’ Perceptions Of Campus Law Enforcement Officers On A College Campus, Junelle M. Bennett

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Black males are often the recipients of police brutality, criminal stereotyping, and inequitable treatment in higher education. This qualitative study examined the experiential narratives of 15 Black male college students’ perception towards law enforcement officers. The data was collected via one-on-one interviews, concluded with a focus group, and then presented in narrative forums. The participants’ feelings, attitudes, or beliefs about themselves as Black males significantly contributed to their inherent identification of the cultural challenges associated with law enforcement officers. The participants’ personal and vicarious life experiences prior to enrolling into higher education were significant to the authentic comprehension of the …

Social Change Leadership Development Associated With Black Greek Letter Organizations (Bglo): Determining How The Divine Nine Bglos Develop Social Change Leaders, Jason Reco Goode

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This study sought to add literature to the topic of Black Greek Letter Organizations (BGLOs) that were part of the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) by exploring the benefits of BGLO membership related to social change leadership development. There were no studies that explained how BGLOs developed social change leaders. This qualitative study of BGLOs used two 90-minute interviews to gather data about BGLO member’s perceptions regarding their social change leadership development. The literature review provided history on the inception of Greek organizations, founding of BGLOs, the NPHC, non-NPHC Black Greek organizations, Masonic influence, student development, student leadership theories, activism, social …

S.I.S. (Suffering In Silence): The Influence Of Educational Attainment On Black Women’S Health, Quiana Chakeena Jones

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative, narrative inquiry study was to explore the influence of educational attainment on Black women’s perceptions of their health. Empirical research indicates the causes of stress and other health concerns pertaining to Black women are often rooted in racism and discrimination. Within the literature, the barriers that many African American women face within the educational system on all levels are discussed. However, there are few studies that have specifically researched the connection between educational attainment regarding receiving bachelorette degrees or higher and how or if that has an influence on Black women’s health. As such, the …

Issues Of Modernity In Russian And U.S. Southern Discourse: Literary And Cinematic Crosscurrents, Zachary John Killebrew

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation traces formulations of modernity, national and regional identity, and economy in the literature and film of Russia and the U.S. South from serfdom to the Second World War. Studying serf and slave narratives, Russian Realist and Southern Renaissance novels such as The Brothers Karamazov (1879), Demons (1872), The Sound and the Fury (1929), Tobacco Road (1932), and Wise Blood (1952), and American and Soviet films such as Volga, Volga (1938) and Cabin in the Sky (1943), this examination locates within Russo-Southern discourses a shared interest in striking out against Western or Northern epistemologies to assert a “peripheral” modernity …

First-Generation Black Males’ Challenges In Attending A Pwi: Understanding What Makes Them Persist, Shakeitra Simmons

Masters Theses

Using qualitative methodology, the researcher studied the challenges and persistence factors for undergraduate First-generation Black males to persist at a Predominantly White Institution. Through conducting six one-on-one semi-structured interviews, the researcher identified the challenges faced by this group of students as mental health, lack of support, and racism/microaggressions. The researcher also identified the factors for persistence at the PWI to be upward mobility, family and school personnel support, and campus involvement.

Get Out (2017), Us (2019), And Jordan Peele's New Black Body Horror, Brady Simenson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis provides an analysis of Jordan Peele’s films, Get Out (2017) and Us (2019). The thesis contextualizes Get Out and Us as part of a protracted cultural conversation regarding monstrous images of the cinematic black body that began with Hollywood’s early monster films and continued into the culturally subversive era of blaxploitation horror films. While blaxploitation cinema reclaimed images of the racial Other that had been represented in the early creature feature subgenre, no such notable movement has subverted the more recent body horror subgenre. Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us shift this subgenre toward racially inverted body horror. …

A New Paradigm For Improving Race Relations, Teresa Reed

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Race, American Enlightenment, And The End Times, Mark A. Mattes

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This chapter examines eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century visions of apocalypse regarding the future of black lives in the American body politic. It begins with readings of Jefferson’s fear of a black planet in Notes on the State of Virginia and Crèvecoeur’s depictions of racial terror in Letters from an American Farmer. The chapter then investigates the writing of an African American herald of the end times, Christopher MacPherson. The chapter reads the apocalyptic jeremiad of MacPherson’s pamphlet, Christ’s Millennium (1811), as a reparative response to the suppression of black voices and the annihilation of black lives.

Generative Leadership And The Life Of Aurelia Erskine Brazeal, A Trailblazing African American Female Foreign Service Officer, Atim Eneida George

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

There is a gap in the literature on generativity and the leadership philosophy and praxis of African American Female Foreign Service Officers (AAFFSOs). I addressed this deficit, in part, by engaging an individual of exceptional merit and distinction—Aurelia Erskine Brazeal—as an exemplar of AAFFSOs. Using qualitative research methods of portraiture and oral history, supplemented by collage, mind mapping and word clouds, this study examined Brazeal’s formative years in the segregated South and the extraordinary steps her parents took to protect her from the toxic effects of racism and legal segregation. In addition, I explored the development of Brazeal’s interest in …

Straight From The Source: Black College Presidents Tell Their Stories, Steven Purcell

LMU Theses and Dissertations

Students on college and university campuses across the United States are becoming more racially diverse. However, leadership on college campuses is not trending toward more diversity, particularly in higher administrative posts such as the presidency. To better understand this stagnate trend of college president diversity, this critical narrative study examined the lived experiences and insights of six current or former college presidents who identify as Black. The participants in this study are a unique cohort of individuals who have served as presidents/chancellors at institutions where Black students are not the majority ethnic/racial group on campus.

More specifically, this study sought …

Racial Profiling In Education: A Study Of Teacher Perceptions Of Students In Special Education, Cairen D. Ireland

LMU Theses and Dissertations

African American males have performed near the bottom of the educational hierarchy in America for centuries. Though some improvements have been noted in the last several decades, educational statistics illustrate the achievement gap still persists between African American and White students (Hanushek, 2016). Disaggregated data show disparities in academic performance, high school drop-out rates, and college completion rates. African American males as early as kindergarten are also facing harsher discipline in schools and Black boys are often excluded from gifted and advanced placement courses and other educational opportunities (Howard, 2010). Yet, this population is over-referred and overrepresented in special education, …

Learning From Their Journey: Black Women In Graduate Health Professions Education, Marcia Lynne Parker

LMU Theses and Dissertations

While numerous efforts have been made across different educational contexts aimed towards increasing demographic diversity in STEM education, career decision-making content related to the potential pursuit of health professions education has failed to reach all students. Thus, there is a need for a more consistent and targeted sharing of information, including from the graduate level (where students must meet detailed requirements for specific healthcare disciplines), down to the community college and high school levels where students often make life-changing career-direction decisions without sufficient information to inform these decisions. At the other end of the spectrum, the conventional learning experiences in …

Repairing A Nation: A Visual Exploration Into The American Debate On Reparations, Desi Jeseve Lapoole

Senior Independent Study Theses

The debate on reparations for slavery in the United States of America has persisted for generations, capturing the attention and imagination of America in waves before falling out of public consciousness over the decades. Throughout its longevity, the debate on reparations has had many arguments in support of and opposition towards the idea and has inspired many different proposals which seek to solve many different problems. Today, reparations have found new mainstream attention, thanks in part Ta-Nehisi Coates’ article, “The Case for Reparations,” published in The Atlantic, and to two new reparations bills in Congress. My research explores the …

Carceral Extractivism, Livelihood Strategies, And “Acting Right” In The U.S. South, Edward L. Bullock

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

Mass incarceration and its effects are well documented and carceral privatization is hotly contested on moral and economic grounds. This dissertation examines the local effects of carceral privatization in the U.S. south in historical context. Tallulah is a small, rural predominately African American town in northeastern Louisiana that endures high rates of poverty, unemployment, and low educational attainment. It also hosts four private prisons operated by LaSalle Corrections, LLC. Two primary and overlapping questions guide the research. 1) How has an history of carceral entrepreneurship and mass incarceration impacted the way persons and communities create livelihoods and imagine futures, and …

Robert Cowley: Living Free During Slavery In Eighteenth-Century Richmond, Virginia, Ana F. Edwards

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the life of Robert Cowley, a formerly enslaved man living free during slavery in eighteenth-century Richmond, Virginia. The first chapter examines Cowley’s enslaved life through the records of others. The data collectors and historians of early America did not intend to capture the truth of Black people’s American experiences, except as defined their enslavement--people in service to the wealth-building capacity of the nation. Yet the lives of Black people who lived in proximity to prominent whites can be glimpsed in a variety of records and writings from account books to deeds, from private letters to newspaper advertisements. …

Doctor-Patient Communication: The Experiences Of Black Caribbean Women Patients With Diabetes, Rosanne Paul-Bruno

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to examine the verbal and non-verbal communication experiences of Black Caribbean diabetic women patients with their doctors, in order to provide a better understanding of the essential aspects of doctor- patient communication and their experiences as they managed their condition. Black Caribbean women have been disproportionately impacted by medical conditions such as diabetes. It has been a documented fact that minorities experience disparities in the health care system at different levels and doctor-patient communication is no exception. Poor doctor-patient communication has been known to hinder patients’ health outcomes, and therefore warrants such studies to increase …

In Pictures And Words: A Womanist Answer To Addressing The Lived Experience Of African American Women And Their Bodies—A Gumbo Of Liberation And Healing, Yolandé Aileen Ifalami Devoe

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Whether it is claiming a radical self-love for one’s body or dissatisfaction of one’s body, the experiences of African American women and their bodies cannot be divergent from the sociocultural contexts in which they live. Seeking to reveal how gender, race, and sexual orientation impact the lived experiences of African American women and their bodies, this study will bring attention to and provide a more nuanced understanding of the historical and sociocultural ramifications of the Black female body. Historically, inadequate attention has been given to an intersectional approach to understanding the experiences of the Black female body. It is understood …

Black Students, White Schools, And Racism: Exploring The Experiences, Challenges, And Resilience Of Black Students At Private K-12 Predominantly White Institutions (Pwis) Through Adult Reflections, Sade Ojuola

Master's Theses

This project examines the challenging racialized experiences of Black students who attended private predominantly white institutions (PWIs) during their K-12 education, with a particular focus on the long-term impact of those experiences. The existing literature contains valuable data about the experiences of Black students in predominantly white private schools. However, an important gap in the literature exists regarding the reflections and understandings developed over time by Black adults who attended predominantly white private schools. This field project aims to explore the beliefs that were borne of those experiences and how those experiences ultimately become interwoven into a Black student’s identity …

Exploring The Relationship Between Gender, Race, And Space, And Toronto Community Housing Policy, Anita Rachel Ewan

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation presents the racial-gendered lived experiences of Black women living in Toronto Community Housing (TCH; subsidized housing). This research found that Black women and their families are disproportionately faced with challenges due to barriers caused by housing policy and procedures that also affect the overall development and wellbeing of their children. It also highlights the ways in which Black women continue to thrive and survive in the face of detrimental and derelict living conditions; accomplished through community development and support initiatives, and fostering strong communities.

This is a qualitative research project that includes an art-based method. Utilizing a feminist …

Rememory, Walidah Imarisha

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Short Story Summary

Set in a future world where those who believe in liberation have set up autonomous zones across the United States, teen Ayo contemplates her place in this society without prisons and police. While her chosen sibling Essakai is fighting to free more territories, Ayo decides to journey into the Rememory, the collective consciousness of past Black liberation movements, to find out what her role in creating these new just worlds should be.

Foreword to Black Freedom Beyond Borders: Memories of Abolition Day

There are times when our lived reality feels stranger than science fiction - a viral …

Black Finesse Amidst The Political Science Paradigm: A Race-Grounded Phenomenology, Janiece Zalina Mackey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this research, I develop a methodology that I call Race-Grounded Phenomenology (RGP). The scope of this study investigates how Black undergraduate students navigate the discipline of political science. An eclectic array of critical theories of race unveil the ways in which Black undergraduate students exhibit flair and tenacity, or what I call Black Finesse. The eclectic array of critical theories of race utilized in this study include critical race theory, critical whiteness studies, and identity enactments. However, this study focuses on the Black student experience amidst the socialization of political science or what I call the political science paradigm. …

College, At What Cost? African American/Black Women Undergraduate Students’ Perception Of Institutional Policy Levers, Tamara D. White

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study is exploring how institutional policy levers impact retention for African American/Black women undergraduate students at a private four-year predominantly white institution in a mid-western state of the United States. Retention of African American/Black women undergraduate students is not a widely researched area. In this exploratory case study, eight African American/Black undergraduate junior and senior women, ten administrators and one focus group of six African American/Black women were interviewed. Artifacts were collected from the administrators. The data collected was analyzed using the culturally engaging campus environment model. The experiences of the African American/Black undergraduate women were examined in academic …

Against The Eyes Of God And Man: The Suicide And Alcohol Intoxication Deaths Of Enslaved People In Alexandria And Henrico County, Virginia, 1805-1829, Peighton L. Young

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a compressive examination of suicide and self-destructive behaviors within specific enslaved populations in early republic Virginia localities. I use coroners’ inquests as the primary means for identifying notable causes of death and potential behavioral patterns amongst the enslaved people presented in this study. I focused my investigation on two causes of death, demographics, and localities respectively: the drowning suicides committed by enslaved women along the Potomac River waterfront in Alexandria between 1807 and 1824 and the alcohol intoxication-related deaths of enslaved men in Henrico County between 1805 and 1829. Stepping away from …