African American History Research Papers

This special issue addresses the possible connections and mutual benefits of examining together two analytic concepts – memory and periphery. These concepts receive much attention in various scholarly discussions, yet they have done so... more

The cosmetic use of chemical agents to lighten the complexion of one’s skin, also referred to as skin whitening, skin lightening, and/or skin bleaching, is currently a widespread global phenomenon. While the history of skin bleaching can... more

This paper unearths the relation between French philosopher Michel Foucault and the US Black Panther Party (BPP). I argue that Foucault’s shift from archaeological inquiry to genealogical critique is fundamentally motivated by his... more

"This book will probably be the most difficult piece of reading you will ever read because in this book I demonstrate with overwhelming proof that Christianity is the great lie foretold in The Bible . You will be tempted to shut down,... more

Humans need not justify terrorism of any kind, regardless of whether one is Muslim, Christian or Jew, because it is the axis of evil and devastation of mankind. However, the deliberate use of the term terrorism in recent decades was... more

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- by Mohamed A Eno and +1
  Omar Eno
- •
- 193
  Business Ethics, Sociology, Criminology, Economic Sociology

The Kushites lived in Africa and Eurasia. Kushites originated in Africa. Researchers have observed that many of the Caucasus hunter-gatherers (CHG) and early European farmers (EF) populations carried R1a and R1b clades, and cultivated... more

This paper presents the findings from a qualitative study that examined the experiences of three middle school teachers who created their own Black History Month curriculum. Although, the relevance of Black History Month is under scrutiny... more

Apologia— Several exceptions notwithstanding (e.g., some titles treating the Reconstruction Era), this bibliography begins, roughly, with the twentieth century. I have not attempted to comprehensively cover works of nonfiction or the arts... more

The Ethical Axioms on Excellent Discourse and Human Behavior of the Black Afrikan Public Administrator & Prime Minister of Kemet Ptah-Hotep!

This paper is considering Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain"s short story, Sultana's Dream written in 1905.The aim of this paper is try to locate the text within the structure of a subgenre, Feminist Utopia. It would try to frame Sultana's Dream in... more

Most sociological research on racial discrimination has had an “inter-racial” focus. That is, researchers have been principally concerned with the disparate treatment that people of color receive relative to Whites in different social... more

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- by Ted Thornhill, Ph.D.
- •
- 128
  Business, Management, Discourse Analysis, History

This thesis examines the complex sociocultural dynamics that surround the concept of jazz theory from two broad perspectives: formalized or academic jazz theory, which emerged as a result of the formal institutionalization of jazz in the... more

This thesis examines the complex sociocultural dynamics that surround the concept of jazz theory from two broad perspectives: formalized or academic jazz theory, which emerged as a result of the formal institutionalization of jazz in the academy, and organic or intrinsic jazz theory, which first arose from African American music-making practices. This dichotomy does not suggest that the majority of jazz community members exist at the extremes of either of these two poles. Contrarily, most musicians tend to occupy the grey area somewhere in between. The aim of this study was to shed light on the complex and elusive intersection between formalized and organic approaches to jazz theory. Through an analysis of informal, formal, and virtual (internet-based) jazz music-learning environments, the results offer a thick description of the way in which notions of "jazz theory" affected the social lives of musicians, fostered racialized jazz identities, defined community boundaries, and influenced music-making practices.

The paper includes a variety of case studies, such as Miles Davis' experience studying music at Julliard, an analysis of the first methodological theory books published for jazz students and educators, online forums where jazz students discuss music theory, and ethnographic data related to modern day jazz theory that I collected from nonacademic and academic jazz learning environments. Two theory-related books examined included George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept and David Baker's Jazz Pedagogy: A Comprehensive Method of Jazz Education for Teacher and Student. In both, the cultural contexts in which the works were created and how many students and educators misinterpreted or omitted elements that reflect the tabooed subject of race were considered. The study also relied on original ethnographic content collected during a field study at a Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop, a racially charged debate between two Aebersold camp attendees, a meeting with saxophonist Ornette Coleman, an interview with a 51-year-old African American jazz drummer and organic jazz theorist named Willie Smart, and a reflection on my experiences with an autodidactic African American saxophonist from Cincinnati, Ohio named Chuck Young.

Overall, the paper elucidates the racialized and transcultural nature of the jazz community's music-learning environments, and examines the role in which jazz theory plays within them. Academic jazz educators may use insights from this essay to create curricula that include an increased cultural and racial competency as well as a greater awareness of approaches to jazz that are traditionally excluded. Jazz musicians, music historians, and jazz fans may benefit from the analysis of jazz theory as a social process.

When selecting and evaluating historical children's literature, there are many questions that must be considered. For example, who will be reading the book? Is the imagined young reader of these historical stories a White, middle class... more

When selecting and evaluating historical children's literature, there are many questions that must be considered. For example, who will be reading the book? Is the imagined young reader of these historical stories a White, middle class cisgender heterosexual, able-bodied student who was born in the United States, or are child readers from all backgrounds being kept in mind. What kind of story is being told in the book? What makes the story difficult? Who is it difficult for? Does the nature of that difficulty differ depending on the demographic makeup of a classroom, school or community? None of these questions are new. Because problematic depictions of children continue to be published, reading and English language arts teachers in classrooms all over the United States, as well as the literacy educators who prepare them, must critically consider these questions as they select books for their students. As children read historical fiction, they are also learning about our nation's fraught past. Many historical topics found in children's and young adult literature--slavery, conditions in the Jim Crow South, the Japanese internment camps of World War II, and the genocide of Native Americans, to name just a few--are set amid the incomprehensible horrors of the bleakest chapters of American history. As literary critic Clare Bradford (2007) noted, one of the functions of children's literature is "to explain and interpret national histories--histories that involve invasion, conquest, violence, and assimilation" (p. 97). Addressing these fraught events, however, can prove difficult in light of some of the other functions of children's literature in our culture: to transmit values, to convey a sense of nostalgia and wonder, to spark young imaginations, or to provide an expected "happily ever after" at the end of each story. Racial issues raised during studying literature can cause considerable discomfort to both teachers and students. This is especially true of African American children's literature. Therefore, the authors of this article recommend that even when using award winning African American children's literature about slavery, recent research recommendations for learning and teaching African American children's literature should be consulted prior to approaching units on slavery. The authors offer a 5-point criteria by Rudine Sims Bishop for helping teachers, parents, and community members choose appropriate books depicting slavery. The 5 principles provided here for selecting authentic children's literature about slavery have the potential to expand the depiction of the lives of the enslaved beyond bondage. Using Bishop's framework to evaluate "A Fine Dessert," this article provides a recommended list of children's books that depict enslaved characters that are within the literary tradition that Bishop delineated.

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- by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and +1
  Debbie Reese
- •
- 9
  Literacy, Children's Literature, Children's and Young Adult Literature, Slavery

Black Nationalism represents one of the most heavily understudied ideologies within the history of urban America. The impact of Black Nationalism has still yet to be gauged. African Americans incurred great frustrations during the 1960s... more

Part I of this paper seeks to address much of the poor scholastic academic research in regards to Noble Drew Ali, founder of the Moorish Science Temple of America, the very first Islamic organization in the United States of America. Was... more

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- by Brady T Heiner
- •
- 45
  Critical Theory, Criminal Justice, Philosophy, Marxism

From "30 Americans" to "Angry White Boy," from "Bamboozled" to "The Boondocks," from "Chappelle's Show" to "The Colored Museum," this collection of twenty-one essays takes an interdisciplinary look at the flowering of satire and its... more

From "30 Americans" to "Angry White Boy," from "Bamboozled" to "The Boondocks," from "Chappelle's Show" to "The Colored Museum," this collection of twenty-one essays takes an interdisciplinary look at the flowering of satire and its influence in defining new roles in black identity. As a mode of expression for a generation of writers, comedians, cartoonists, musicians, filmmakers, and visual/conceptual artists, satire enables collective questioning of many of the fundamental presumptions about black identity in the wake of the civil rights movement. Whether taking place in popular and controversial television shows, in a provocative series of short internet films, in prize-winning novels and plays, in comic strips, or in conceptual hip hop albums, this satirical impulse has found a receptive audience both within and outside the black community.

Such works have been variously called "post-black," "post-soul," and examples of a "New Black Aesthetic." Whatever the label, this collection bears witness to a noteworthy shift regarding the ways in which African American satirists feel constrained by conventional obligations when treating issues of racial identity, historical memory, and material representation of blackness.

Among the artists examined in this collection are Paul Beatty, Dave Chappelle, Trey Ellis, Percival Everett, Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino), Spike Lee, Aaron McGruder, Lynn Nottage, ZZ Packer, Suzan Lori-Parks, Mickalene Thomas, Toure, Kara Walker, and George C. Wolfe. The essays intentionally seek out interconnections among various forms of artistic expression. Contributors look at the ways in which contemporary African American satire engages in a broad ranging critique that exposes fraudulent, outdated, absurd, or otherwise damaging mindsets and behaviors both within and outside the African American community.

Includes essays by Bertram D. Ashe, Thomas R. Britt, Darryl Dickson-Carr, James J. Donahue, Michael B. Gillespie, Gillian Johns, Luvena Kopp, Jennifer Larson, Cameron Leader-Picone, Brandon Manning, Marvin McAllister, Danielle Fuentes Morgan, Derek Conrad Murray, Kinohi Nishikawa, Keenan Norris, Christian Schmidt, Linda Furgerson Selzer, Terrence T. Tucker, Sam Vásquez, and Aimee Zygmonski; with a critical introduction by Derek C. Maus.

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Reviews:

"The twenty-one essays that follow coeditor Derek C. Maus’s fine introduction to this tome demonstrate that, while post-soul may be a contentious epithet, the book _Post-Soul Satire_ is a scholarly treasure trove for those interested in the outcropping of satirical African American writing, visual art, music, film, and television that appeared in the twenty-five years following the publication of novelist Trey Ellis’s much discussed article “The New Black Aesthetic” in the Winter 1989 issue of _Callaloo_.[...]

_Post-Soul Satire: Black Identity after Civil Rights_ maps the courageous (to some), unsettling (to others) trajectory African American print, dramatic, and visual artists have pursued in the recent past. And given the present-day socioeconomic and political circumstances in America and abroad, it seems clear that African American satirists will have no need to dull, much less put away, their barbed weapons any time soon. Though the task is daunting, our satirists, with Juvenalian scorn and Horatian mockery, will continue to expose societal warts and cancers with the goal of ameliorating broken aspects of America’s social contract, and _Post-Soul Satire_ will provide the rest of us with a powerful framework for better understanding the complex challenges these artists do and will face. This is not merely a good book but an important one."

-- Joe Weixlmann, _African American Review_ 48.1-2 (Spring-Summer 2015)

"In this dexterous, cogent collection, Maus and Donahue (both, SUNY Potsdam) gather 21 scholarly essays that examine the use, effectiveness, and embrace of satire within African American art of the last two decades. Taken together, the essays propose that satirical postures in contemporary black art communicate an imperative among a new generation of black artists to broaden and redefine African American identity in the post–civil rights/Obama (read “post-black”) era. Though complex at times, the critical work accomplished here sustains engagement. The contributors exhibit an admirable command of history, theory, lexicon, and cultural aesthetics. Moreover, the depth and range of analyses encourage exploration of the many primary texts examined in these pages. Particular attention is paid to the works of Kara Walker, Percival Everett, Aaron McGruder, and Touré. Though these offerings—replete with challenging academic language and lofty theorizations—do not lend themselves to readers outside the academy, those interested in thoughtful critiques of popular culture, literature, media studies, and African American studies will find abundant rewards here. Summing Up: Highly recommended."

-- Jarret Neal, _Choice_ 52.8 (April 2015)

"While there are a number of books on the concepts of post-soul and post-racial (many referenced in the book’s nineteen essays), this collection could be an excellent place to begin one’s education on the topic, even given the focus on satire. The range of material and depth of investigation into satiric representations of black subjectivity in a variety of media is impressive. In his introduction to the collection, Derek Maus makes a persuasive case for the strength of an African American brand of satire significant for understanding current comic art in the United States."

-- James E. Caron, _Studies in American Humor_ 2.1 (Jan. 2016)

"Ultimately, this text will be useful to anyone who is particularly interested in satire, its inner workings, and its social and political impact. It is also going to be useful to anyone researching Black humor as well as those working with the complex methods by which some Black Americans negotiate complicated positions in contemporary society. Furthermore, given recent discussions in the public sphere regarding what does and does not count as satire and who should or should not be the targets of satire, the text seems especially relevant."

-- Jacinta Yanders, _Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature_ 45.1 (2017)

"Post-Soul Satire is a well-chosen assortment of essays that discusses African American issues in various media within the cultural context of the United States and in terms of the phenomenon of post-soul[...]. It is an important contribution to American humor studies, given its sustained focus on satire, humor, and irony."

-- Debarati Byabartta, _Studies in American Humor_ 3.2 (2017)

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- by Derek C. Maus and +1
  James J . Donahue
- •
- 106
  American Literature, History, Black Studies Or African American Studies, American Studies

When Johan Maurits of Nassau, Governor-General of Dutch Brazil (1630-54), sent out expeditions against the maroons of Palmares, he was informed by his intelligence officers that the inhabitants followed the “Portuguese religion,” that... more

When Johan Maurits of Nassau, Governor-General of Dutch Brazil (1630-54), sent out expeditions against the maroons of Palmares, he was informed by his intelligence officers that the inhabitants followed the “Portuguese religion,” that they had erected a church in the capital, that there were chapels with images of saints and the Virgin Mary and that Zumbi, the king of Palmares, did not allow the presence of “fetishists.” Portuguese sources confirm that Palmares had a priest who baptized children and married couples and that its inhabitants followed Catholic rite, although according to Governor Francisco de Brito, they did so “in a stupid fashion.” Many more examples of the existence of Afro-Catholic elements in maroon communities in Latin America can be found. They question the widespread assumption that Catholicism had been forced upon all African slaves and that, even among those who seemingly embraced the colonizer’s faith, it functioned merely as a veneer underneath which their truly African, indigenous beliefs remained hidden. As the case of Palmares indicates, slaves did not necessarily wish to liberate themselves from all “Catholic ballast” once they ran away but sometimes remained strongly attached to it.
This conclusion corresponds to the assumption by the Brazilian historian Marina de Mello e Souza that upon arrival in the Americas, many slaves did not perceive Catholic elements as something foreign since “Catholicism represented a link to their native Africa.” Souza is but one of several scholars who in recent years contributed to a shift in the study of black performance culture in the New World. The new paradigm essentially consists in the acknowledgment that our understanding of black performance culture can be bettered if we take into consideration that many Africans had already adopted certain European—predominantly Portuguese—cultural and religious elements before they were shipped as slaves to the Americas.
In the context of this shift, there has been an increased interest in Afro-Iberian brotherhoods (irmandades/hermandades) and confraternities (confrarias/cofradías). While it was long assumed that these so-called “black brotherhoods” were associated with slave culture on the Iberian Peninsula and in Latin America only, it can now be confirmed that Afro-Catholic fraternities also flourished in parts of Africa during the Atlantic slave trade era. As Linda Heywood has argued, “many Kongos and not a few Angolans had been Christians before their enslavement in Brazil. Thus they would have been familiar with the brotherhoods in Luanda, Soyo, and Kongo, and the central role they played in the creole society of Kongo, Angola and São Tomé.” Nicole von Germeten’s research on black brotherhoods in Mexico also concluded that “some Central Africans probably took part in social and religious brotherhoods and sisterhoods before crossing the Atlantic.”
Ira Berlin also observed that black brotherhoods played a crucial role in the intercontinental networks that developed in the context of the transatlantic slavery. However, like most scholars, Berlin perceives brotherhoods as an essentially Iberian phenomenon that was crucial to the development of black identity the Iberian World, differing from North America, where “numerous informal connections between black people” developed, but not brotherhoods. Although Berlin confirms that slaves “created an intercontinental web of cofradias … so that, by the seventeenth century, the network of black religious brotherhoods stretched from Lisbon to São Tomé, Angola, and Brazil,” he believes that those slaves who ended up in Dutch, French or English colonies refrained from developing brotherhoods since there were no “comparable institutional linkages” that allowed them to do so. Berlin’s assumption thus presupposes that brotherhoods could only be established with institutional support and excludes the possibility that slaves themselves may have taken the initiative to create such organizations.
This article questions this conclusion and explores the possibility that slave organizations modeled upon Iberian brotherhoods have existed in North America. In doing so, it follows a reasoning by Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, Matt Childs and James Sidbury, editors of The Black Urban Atlantic in the Age of the Slave Trade (2013), according to whom “approved institutional structures authorized by the Catholic Church were not always necessary for Africans and their descendants to build fraternal structures.” A first section provides an overview of the characteristics of Afro-Iberian slave brotherhoods. The following section presents a comparative analysis between king celebrations in Afro-Iberian brotherhoods and those at African-American Election Day and Pinkster festivals in New England and New York. The article ends with a reflection on the origins of Afro-Iberian cultural and religious elements among slave communities outside of the Iberian realm in the American diaspora.

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- by Jeroen Dewulf
- •
- 194
  Religion, Christianity, History, Cultural History

God & Apple Pie: Religious Myths and Visions of America by Christopher Buck Kingston, NY: Educator's International Press, 2015 Contents Introduction, by J. Gordon Melton Chapter 1: America: Nation and Notion Chapter 2: Native American... more

God & Apple Pie: Religious Myths and Visions of America
by Christopher Buck
Kingston, NY: Educator's International Press, 2015

Contents
Introduction, by J. Gordon Melton
Chapter 1: America: Nation and Notion
Chapter 2: Native American Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 3: Protestant Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 4: The Christian Right’s Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 5: Catholic Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 6: Jewish Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 7: Mormon Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 8: Christian Identity Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 9: Black Muslim Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 10: Contemporary Muslim Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 11: Buddhist Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 12: Baha’i Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 13: Conclusion: How Minority Faiths Redefined America’s World Role

Two sample chapters (by publisher's permission):
1. Native American Myths and Visions of America (Chapter 2)
2. Black Muslim Myths and Visions of America (Chapter 9)

Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/God-Apple-Pie-Religious-Visions/dp/1891928155/

Introduction by J. Gordon Melton,
Distinguished Professor of American Religious History, Baylor University

Far from being an interesting additional topic for the religious dilettante, the discussion around the theological reality that is America, periodically bursts forth as an important item on the nation's agenda, from the place of prayer services in the White House, to the issuance of an annual government report on religious persecution, to the rise of contemporary terrorism. As one traces radical Islam, for example, one arrives at the writings of one Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian who spent some of his younger years in America, and came away with his own vision of a country mired in sin and decadence. He would posit America as the image of everything he hoped to escape in promoting the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Now, in all honesty, I must admit that over the years as I encountered all of the intriguing, even fascinating, ideas about America in the great cosmic scheme of things, I never got around to systematically gathering the different visions and trying to make sense of them in any detailed fashion. Thus, I have been more than happy to receive, and now with this modest introduction, pass along to my scholarly colleagues and the reading public the work of Christopher Buck.

During his years of observation and research, Buck has surveyed the spectrum of visions of America that have energized and motivated the America's religious community, and has selected from among them a sample that both (1) represents the spectrum of opinion about America and its importance, and (2) highlights the more important visions of America that have shaped and are continuing to shape the way we understand this country we call home. His work calls us to become self-conscious about the assumptions we use in our day-to-day movements that massage the ways we approach our neighbors, our colleagues at work, and the politicians for whom we vote.

Buck begins with the visions of America present at the founding of the nation, aspects of which still strongly permeate the culture today, and have found a new home among conservative Protestants in their innovative idea of Christian America. Amid the Protestant context, we often forget the role of the Roman Catholic Church, which became the largest religious body in America in the 1840s and is now three times larger than its nearest competitor. At the end of the nineteenth century, a controversy on Americanism would erupt around Catholic visions of their place in a changing world that would drive it from participation in the nation's public square for a half-century, and molded its reentrance after World War II.

And then there are all the other-than-Christian religions, from Ahmadiyya Muslims to Zoroastrians, all of which possess their its own vision of America that shapes their appropriation of life in the United States and guides their development as their place in the nation was challenged, then accepted, and most recently affirmed and even celebrated by the nation as a whole. We have watched as Buddhists have carved out a place as cultural peacemakers, Muslims have struggled with separation of religion and government, and Baha'is have tried to understand the communication of their founder, Baha'u'llah, with the presidents of the Americas collectively, and with 'Abdu'l-Baha's statements about the destiny of America in particular. All of this occurs in the ebb and flow of religious life. One day we envision the possible unity of America's religions only to be thrown up against the many harsh divisions, which motivates us once more to seek realms of agreement, which again highlights the array of issues that can drive wedges between those who accept the label "American" as part of their self-identity.

In conclusion, I can, as a scholar, reflect on the contribution that this book, Religious Myths and Visions of America: God and Apple Pie, is making to our understanding of the American mosaic and how various segments of the religious community have found their way to being American. As an informed citizen I welcome its information that allows me to empathize with and make informed decisions relative to those with whom I might align (or oppose) as I sally forth in the public square. And on a personal level, I welcome the author's invitation for me to meet anew the residents of my neighborhood, those who shop in the same stores I do, send their children to the same schools my grandchildren attend, and diligently work toward their own appropriation of the American dream.

J. Gordon Melton
Distinguished Professor of American Religious History
Baylor University

January 2015 — This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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- by Christopher Buck
- •
- 125
  Religion, Buddhism, New Religious Movements, History

Several novels are mentioned in this critical work, which is the first collection of essays published in English in the US following his Nobel prize in 2006.

Christopher Buck, Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy. Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 2005. Pub date: July 3, 2005. ISBN-13: 978-1890688387. ISBN-10: 189068838X. L In print. (Order from Kalimat Press: http://www.kalimat.com/Locke.html.)... more

Christopher Buck, Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy. Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 2005. Pub date: July 3, 2005. ISBN-13: 978-1890688387. ISBN-10: 189068838X. L

In print. (Order from Kalimat Press: http://www.kalimat.com/Locke.html.)

REVIEWS
• Derik Smith. World Order 38.3 (2006/2007): 42–48. (Published in 2008.): ”Christopher Buck’s recent book, Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy, is a welcome addition to the literature on early twentieth-century American and African American culture. But, perhaps more important, Buck’s study is a significant contribution to scholarship on the history of the Bahá’í Faith in the United States. … Any future study of Locke must necessarily make its way through Christopher Buck’s Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy. The scholar forcefully proves his thesis that, in Locke’s thinking, philosophy and religious belief operated as synergistic terms. He has shown that the Bahá’í Faith was integral to Locke’s life and ideology. … Yet, after reading Buck’s work, it is difficult to imagine Locke the philosopher rapt in prayer. Of course, this is not a shortcoming of the book. Rather it is an indication that, while he may have wanted to portray a more pious figure, Buck maintains the vow he made in his introduction to Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy “to constrain any grandiose claims on Locke as a Bahá’í.”

• M. Anthony Fitchue. Journal of African American History 92.1 (Winter 2007): 131–133: “But the jewels in this book are unmistakable. … Clearly, Buck has given voice to the men and women who not only put the Baha’i faith first in their lives, but also left key documents, personal letters, notes, and memoranda related to the life of philosopher Alain LeRoy Locke for future researchers to ponder and use for years to come.”

• William P. Collins. Insights (Library of Congress Professional Association Newsletter) 38.1–3 (Jan–Oct 2006): 10–12: “Both of these books [Lights of the Spirit and Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy] go a long way toward correcting the historians’ failure to note the important role played by the Bahá’í Faith and prominent African-American Bahá’ís in the struggle for racial equality in the United States.”

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- by Christopher Buck
- •
- 87
  Religion, New Religious Movements, History, American History

In December 1961, Albert Luthuli, leader of the African National Congress (ANC), arrived in Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Journalists in Norway noted how apartheid crack-downs failed to poison the new laureate's 'courteous'... more

This article discusses Tupac Shakur’s relationship with policy debates in the 1990s using an interdisciplinary approach to examine historical, musical, archival, and policy sources. Key episodes in his life, especially his incarceration... more

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- by Cuadernos de Literatura
- •
- 149
  History, Cultural History, Sociology, Cultural Studies

Noel Ignatiev is the author of the influential 1995 book How the Irish Became White (Routledge). He also co-founded Race Traitor: a journal of the new abolitionism and, with John Garvey, co-edited the 1996 anthology Race Traitor. I... more

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- by Danny Postel
- •
- 16
  History, American History, Ethnic Studies, Irish Studies

Essays on a Theory of Afrikan Socio-political Economic Liberation with an Exposition on the first Black War of National Liberation: Kushite KMT/Kemet & the Expulsion of the Kushite Kanaanite Hyksos c. 2681-2706 KC [c. 1560-1535 BCE]!

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African Americans, who are descendants of slaves forcibly brought from Africa to America hundreds of years ago, and contemporary voluntary African migrants to the USA do not form a single “black community”. This statement contradicts the... more

This essay examines a controversial memoir Louis Armstrong wrote on his deathbed in New York’s Beth Israel Hospital. I argue that critics have made the mistake of treating each of the narrative’s elements as discreet units. In doing so... more

The photograph on the dust cover states this book's horror succinctly.

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- by Joe Lockard
- •
- 14
  American History, American Studies, Photography, Violence

The American War for Independence lasted eight years. It was one of the longest and bloodiest wars in America's history, and yet it was not such a protracted conflict merely because the might of the British armed forces was brought to... more

The American War for Independence lasted eight years. It was one of the longest and bloodiest wars in America's history, and yet it was not such a protracted conflict merely because the might of the British armed forces was brought to bear on the hapless colonials. The many divisions among Americans themselves over whether to fight, what to fight for, and who would do the fighting often had tragic and violent consequences. The Revolutionary War was by any measure the first American civil war. Yet national narratives of the Revolution and even much of the scholarship on the era focus more on simple stories of a contest between the Patriots and the British. Loyalists and other opponents of the Patriots are routinely left out of these narratives, or given short shrift. So, too, are the tens of thousands of ordinary colonists—perhaps a majority of the population—who were disaffected or alienated from either side or who tried to tack between the two main antagonists to make the best of a bad situation. Historians now estimate that as many as three-fifths of the colonial population were neither active Loyalists nor Patriots. When we take the war seriously and begin to think about narratives that capture the experience of the many, rather than the few, an illuminating picture emerges. The remarkably wide scope of the activities of the disaffected during the war—ranging from nonpayment of taxes to draft dodging and even to armed resistance to protect their neutrality—has to be integrated with older stories of militant Patriots and timid Loyalists. Only then can we understand the profound consequences of disaffection—particularly in creating divisions within the states, increasing levels of violence, prolonging the war, and changing the nature of the political settlements in each state. Indeed, the very divisions among diverse Americans that made the War for Independence so long, bitter, and bloody also explains much of the Revolutionary energy of the period. Though it is not as seamless as traditional narratives of the Revolution would suggest, a more complicated story also helps better explain the many problems the new states and eventually the new

Despite the recent rise of attention to race and racism in American philosophy, there is no current scholarship exploring the philosophy of T.Thomas Fortune and his influence on Ida B. Wells-Barnett. The contemporary mode of thinking in... more

In 1877, the African American musical ensemble known as the Fisk Jubilee Singers traveled to Germany to raise money for their university. The choir’s ten-month tour provided German listeners with one of their first significant and... more

This chapter begins by tracing the desk in my office at California State University back to its production in California’s Prison Industry Authority—a carceral manufacturing system that, at a rate of 30 to 95 cents per hour, employs a... more

This paper examines the development of the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA), a Black American Islamic religious organisation from 1933 to 1945, a period largely unexplored by academics. Through the lens of Father Prophet Mohammed... more

In 1969, the Black Panther Party (BPP) established a relationship with the North Korean leadership that was based upon the principle of self-reliance (under the rubric of the Juche ideology), the transnational goal of Third World... more

An Afrikological Primer in Critical Thinking, Critical Listening, Critical Speaking, Critical Questioning, Critical Writing, Critical Reading & Critical Research In Pursuit of the Re-establishment of an Afrikan Njia towards a... more

South Carolina was a staggeringly weak polity from its founding in 1670 until the 1730s. Nevertheless, in that time, and while facing significant opposition from powerful indigenous neighbors, the colony constructed a robust plantation... more

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- by Daragh Grant
- •
- 53
  History, American History, Sociology, Native American Studies

The Black Power ideology revolutionary nationalism grew out of a pro-armed self-defense orientation that was composed of a network of the Marxist-Leninists and Black nationalists in the 1950s and early 1960s. The Revolutionary Action... more

From the Temple of Auset in Paaraka (Pilak, Philae) -2,400 years ago]

This article focuses on the Nazi perception and exploitation of American lynching in the prewar Third Reich. It explores how National Socialist policymakers and writers addressed violence within their own society by exploring racial... more

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- by Jonathan Wiesen
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- 14
  Violence, German History, Transatlantic History, Southern History

Christopher Buck, “Robert Hayden.” Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. Edited by Jay Parini. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Vol. 2, 177–181. ABSTRACT Robert Hayden was made poet laureate of Senegal in 1966 and ten... more

Christopher Buck, “Robert Hayden.” Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. Edited by Jay Parini. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Vol. 2, 177–181.

ABSTRACT
Robert Hayden was made poet laureate of Senegal in 1966 and ten years later became America's first black poet laureate. Acclaimed as "People's Poet" early in his career, later he was severely criticized for refusing to call himself a "Negro poet," even though he wrote some of the most powerful "black history" poems in the English language. Hayden transcended the identity politics of what W. E. B. Du Bois called "art as propaganda"-something that elite African-American artists (the Talented Tenth) were expected to produce. On the principle that race divides while a higher identity unifies, Hayden presented himself as an American poet rather than as a black poet. His greatness is that he was really both, and that his art was a fusion music of the American experience.

For Hayden, craftsmanship was essential — a marriage between matter and manner, as Gwendolyn Brooks once described it. With missionary zeal, Hayden experimented with forms and techniques in an effort to arrive at what he characterized as something distinctively individual, patterned, yet wild and free. This even included expanding the language itself, with such neologisms as "soulscape," "snowlight," "lifeswawk," "mimosa's fancywork," and "Absolute Otherwhere." The reader encounters such expressions as "moonstruck trees," "auroral dark," "famine fields," "jazzbo strutting of a mouse," "totemic flowers," "paleocrystic ice," "elegiac lace," "glaucous poison jewels," and "blazonry of farewell scarlet."

Adaptation was Hayden's primary method of innovation. Form flowed from content. Protean in his technique, Hayden employed a range of poetic and rhetorical devices to evoke each experience he sought to create. He was a virtuoso of rhythm, tonality, repetition, irony, oxymoron, paradox, and symbolism. Using sense to intensify, Hayden primarily relied on visual and auditory images. His gift for visual imagery grew out of his handicapped sight. Sensitivity to sound, tone, and cadence sprang from a keen sense of hearing, which Hayden developed to compensate for his poor vision. His work is full of dramatic tension, edged by irony, and tempered by religious emotions as echoes of the human spirit.

As an American shaman, Hayden was an oracle mediating between gods and mortals. His poetry was medicinal. On a personal level, it provided psychic therapy, self-medication. Although he was not a confessional poet, his reminiscence poems were cathartic. Those Winter Sundays is the best example; at a number of his readings, people in the audience would be brought to tears by it. On a social level, his poems promoted racial healing.

The first African-American poet laureate, Hayden was decidedly transracial in that role at the American bicentennial. This is poignantly exemplified in the deliciously wry title poem of his last book, American Journal, in which the poet assumes the mask of an extraterrestrial, reporting his anthropological observations of Americans to his superiors, the Counselors. More human than racial, Hayden truly was an "alien, at home."

See also: Christopher Buck, “Robert Hayden’s ‘[American Journal]’: A Multidimensional Analysis.” Online Journal of Baha’i Studies 2 (2008): 1–37.

https://www.academia.edu/29603808/_Robert_Hayden_s_American_Journal_A_Multidimensional_Analysis_2008_

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- by Christopher Buck
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- 30
  American Literature, Religion, New Religious Movements, History

This thesis focuses on the archaeological study of the Slave Cemetery at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Here, methodological and theoretical principles are utilized to study the area that many enslaved workers call their final resting... more

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- by Joe Downer
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- 7
  Archaeology, Historical Archaeology, Landscape Archaeology, Slavery

African American History

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