African American Studies

Approximate number of African Americans in US

13% of population in US are African American. About 43 million. (In Florida, blacks are 16.5%)

13th, 14th, 15th Amendments

13th Amendment: ratified on December 6, 1865. No slavery, but law didn't say Blacks were citizens. 14th Amendment: Provided Citizenship to Africans in United States, Created African Americans as Nationality, did not promise right to vote. 15th Amendment: African American Males given right to vote on 2/3/1870. A person could not be deprived of the right to vote because of race, did not include women.

Asa Philip Randolph and Executive order 8802

1887-1979. Civil Rights activist. Labor activism (worked with unions and workers). Formed the MOWASH committee for desegregating military. Also put pressure on military to set equal pay for Black soldiers. Executive order 8802 against employment discrimination in industries.

Plessy vs. Ferguson

1896. Plessy challenged segregation laws. US Court upheld constitutionality of state laws requiring segregation in public facilities. Legalized segregation and sanctioned existing segregation laws.

Baynard Rustin

1912-1987. Civil Rights, gay rights activist, Nonviolence. Traveled to India to learn nonviolent protest techniques. Key organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for JObs and Freedom, influenced Martin Luther King Jr.

Shirley Chisholm

1924-2005. First Black US Congresswoman in 1969. Ran for President in 1972. Bedstudy.

*Montgomery Bus Boycott 1955

1955. Claudete Colvin arrested pre-Parks. Rosa Parks chosen for test case. December 5, 1955 boycott begins. 1956 Supreme Court upheld district court ruling that segregated buses were illegal.

Black Liberation Theology

1966 National Committee of NEgreo Churches. Theology grounded in the experience of African Americans, and related to other Christian liberation theologies, used to combat focused racism. Financial blessing in the will of God for Christians. Faith, good speech and financial donations to Christina ministries will increase material wealth.

Interdisciplinary

A combination of numerous disciplines like psychology, english, art, biology in mapping out and understanding the African American experience.

The Hampton Model

A pedagogy and educated process that focuses on manual training and resists any teaching that address injustice and inequalities. Hampton Normal and Agricultural institute was founded in 1868. Samuel Champman Armstrong: Union Solider, Agent of Freedman's Bureau, secured funds to open vocational institutions.

Frederick Douglas

Abolitionist, Writer, Orator. 1818-1895. Went to Europe, was helped to buy his own Freedom. Was powerful opponent of slavery. Addressed American paradox head-on. "Men of Color to arms". recruited over 100 free blacks-including two of sons.

Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome

Adapted from Post traumatic stress disorder. Legacy of systematic dehumanization. Intergeneraltaionl trauma. Institutionalized and continuous. Vacant esteem, prosperity for Anger, internalized racism. Healing, much start from within, focus on resilience of African American culture. Notes the psychological and physical impact of racism and white supremacy. Dr. Jay Degual Leary.

African American Social Institutions, Black Church, Religion, vs Spirituality

Already had ways of reaching out to God + spiritual support. Religion: routine, belief in origins of God + Gods, or a belief concerning the origins, meaning, and purpose of universe. Spirituality: defined by a variety of cultural and religious practices. A natural state of being. Dancing, chanting, music which were religious expressions that translated to other religions. Religion was apart of blacks before America, adopted Christianity during slavery and modified it. Blacks build institutions to organize, people look to organizations to pull resources, organizations merge when talking about African American action. Bleach preachers as leaders, large influence over community.

Great Migration

Avoid systematic oppression and find better employment opportunities. Movement North and West. 1910s-1930s. Key cities-NY, Chicago, Detroit.

The Black Aesthetic

Based on unique African/Black world view. Dissuasions made popular during 1960s and connected to cultural politics of black nationalists. belief in artists as activists.

Dr. Akbar's destructive attitudes (legacy of Slavery)

Behavioral effects of slavery and Racism. Correlation between treatment of enslaved blacks and prisoners of war. destructive attitudes related to property, work, and leadership.

*Double Consciousness

Being Black in White culture and the internal struggles that come with it.

Black Codes 40 Acres and a Mule

Black Codes: When able, whites changed/created laws to abuse African Americans. Blacks could not bear arms, had no legal standing in court. Grandfather clause, segregation and Jim Crow, Vagrancy Laws (way to control). 40 Acres and A Mule: Idea that Freedman's Bureau would obtain land and distribute it to slaves who worked on land.

Juan Garrido

Born in West Africa. Traveled with Ponce De Leon for 13 years. Was a conquistador, not a slave.

Booker T. Washington

Born into Slavery, attended Hampton University and Founder of Tuskegee Machine. 1895-speech given at cotten states exposition. Blacks should work and not fight for political equality. Stressed an industrial/trade-oriented education

Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act

Civil Rights Act 1964: ending legally sanctioned racial segregation. Voting Rights Act: removing racially motivated barriers that prevent non-whites from voting like Jim crow laws.

The New Negro and Alaine Lock

Concept used since 1895-1925. Black men and women usually educated, usually middle class, who demanded their rights, challenged old images. Alain Locke-stressed black assertiveness post WW1 and migration, urged artists to look to Africa for inspiration, but also to Souther Roots. Apart of cotton club.

Types of Racism

Conscious=overt (old), unconscious=covert (new), institutional

A Girl Like Me

Documentary by Kiri Davis which examines the importance of color, hair, and facial features for Black women.

Brown vs. Board of Education

Education needed integration, separate cannot be equal in education.

African American Studies

Encompasses the black experience of all types of people

Ethnicity, Nationality

Ethnicity=shared cultural heritage, shared ancestry, homeland, history. Nationality=legal relationship between a person and a nation state.

African vs. European Slavery

Europeans: Chattal slavery. Singled out on a larger scale, started largest forced migration in History, economic system and industry supported by laws, institution a cruel and unjust exercise of power against Africans for prolonged period. African slavery= condition of warring tribes, law breakers, it was specific to certain areas, Africans remained on continent, had opportunities to make money by selling themselves, way to work way out of slavery

Lynching

Extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob by hanging, burning, mutilation and other means. To put to death by mob action without legal sanction. Lynch Law

Abolitionists

Figures that fought to abolish slavery through escape and courtrooms

Nathan Hare and San Francisco State

First person to create a Black studies Program at San Francisco State in 1968. Students Organized in 1966 and inspired by Black power movement. They argued for Black studies program

The Black Panthers

Formed in 1966-1982. Bobby Seal, Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaves and Kathleen Cleaver. Focused on protecting Black neighbor hoods initially. Became radical group. 10 point program- ie. free breakfast that combined Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence for Blacks.

Historically Black Colleges & Universities HBCU's

Free Blacks built schools. 1837 Cheyney University Pennsylvania. Types of schools: Normal school-designed to train schools and students. Agricultural and Mechanical. Philanthropist: EX Julius Rosenwald.

Fictive Kin and Extended Family

Historic relations. Family has been destroyed because of enslavement and forced migration.

House Slave/Field Slave

House: service oriented, better off, 'born and bred' into family, socialized like family. Field: Production oriented, treated as machine/less direct contact with owner

Colorism, Lookism, Passing, Whitening

Ideology around 'whitening' skin color to be more acceptable in society. Based exclusively on phenotypes. Whitening is also a term used in Latin America in order to 'advance the race' by marrying only whites. Prejudice based on appearance.

Ida B. Wells

Journalist. Refused to give up her seat on Chesapeake and South Eastern Railroad. Sued and won, but case overturned by Tennessee Supreme Court. Civil Rights Activist (Black, women, social justice for all). Anti-lynching activist. Part of Women's suffrage March 1913. Part of Delta Sigma Theta.

*The Harlem Renaissance

Key political period that was started by cultural action like the Black Arts movement in 1960s. Took place in Harlem, New York. Emphasized black writing and culture.

Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X

Malcom X: Detroit red, joined nation of Islam, left in 1964. Became a sunni Muslim, founded and Joined OAAU. killed in 1965. Not a black panther.Was against integration, believed in black supremacy. Martin Luther King Jr.

Freedman's Bureau

March 1865, created a bureau of refugees, freedman, and abandoned lands. Had to address issues the new freedmen faced. Forced labor, judge/jury in settling disputes, collected taxes, gave punishments, like mini-government.

Sankofa

Means go back and fetch it in the Akan language of Ghana. Symbolized by a bird plucking its tail fathers or taking the egg off its back.

Black Shift in Political Parties

Most Blacks supported Republican Party after Civil War. Whites motes to Republican party while Blacks moved to Democrat party during 1930s. Many whites resisted New Deal policies. Democrats under New Deal supported integration of military and civil rights legislation.

Lift Every Voice and Sing

National Negro Anthem, sung by the Johnsons

The American Paradox

People who signed the declaration all owned slaves. "We hold the truths to be self-evident." Declaration promoted freedom, but not for black people.

Reconstruction

Period after Civil War from 1863-1877. Attempted to help freedmen through programs and also keep South in line through military intervention. Emancipation days, Juneteeth. Freedman's Bureau, Fought for voting rights, 40 acres and a mule proposal rejected by congress, Built institutions, faced discrimination and violence. Family reunite.

Phenotype and Genotype

Phenotype=Observable physical characteristics, Genotype=genetic characteristics

Tools of Mis-education

Postcards, Carnivals, Themeparks, Movies, Books, Commercials, Education, Newspapers

Charles Hamilton Houston

Prominent Lawyer who killed Jim Crow. Apart of the NAACP. "A lawyers either a social engineer or he is a parasite on society"

Oppositional Culture Theory

Proposed by John Oglu. What is acting black? OCP used to explain group differences in academic achievement among young, particularly youth from minority groups. Suggestion Black students purposely underperform on tests

Resistance during Slavery

Run-away, rebellion, work slowdown, stoppage, acting dumb, acting sick, breaking tools, suicide, maiming, killing children

Correlates of Achievement

Self-contempt, value orientation, teacher expectations, family background in how to do well in school.

*The Moynihan Report

Senator Daniel Moynihan. Negro Family: Cae for National Action (1965). Focused on 'Black Pathology' which took into account Black education, family, jobless, crime, ghetto culture. Report criticized for blaming victim. Rule Ordered payments could only go to families with no man in the house.

"Race"

Social construct based on biology, phenotypes, etc. Has a history and is a political domination utility. Refined and legitimized over time and internalized by masses.

Culture of Poverty

Social heory that attempts to expalin cycle of poverty. Suggests poor people have values that predispose them to poverty, poor people learn to adapt to system of poverty and perpetuate it. Blames the culture, ignoring system

W.E.B. Dubois

Sociologist, writer, editor, historian. Pran-Africanist civil rights activist. Graduated from Harvard. 1st black person to earn PHD from Harvard. University of Berlin. Crisis-NAACP. Stressed intellectual elite and demanded equal treatment compared to Washington's accomdationist ideals. Niagara Movement 1905- more radical, direct approach to resisting opponents.

Talented Tenth

Suggested 1 in 10 black men would become part of an educated class dedicated to social change, later modified that anyone can be a guide

Haitian Revolution

Teaching of Macaudel and Dutty Boukmen 1789 French Revolution start. Haiti becomes the 1st known black republic in New world. The most successful slave revolt in American history.

Marcus Garvey

The United negro Improvement association. 1887-1940. Born in Jamaica. Orator, Journalist, Publisher, Black Nationalist, Pan Africanist, Back to Africa

African Diaspora

The collective group of Africans that have been taken from Africa and live in other parts of the world

Mis-Education

The false information hegemony produces in order to oppress Blacks.

Carter G. Woodson & Black History Month

The father of black history month, one of the first people to study black history

African Americans and the Declaration of Independence

Though it promised freedom, its freedom was not for blacks

Gentrification

Transformation of communities, where governments begin pressuring these areas and preventing them from being livable

Tuskegee Experiments

US Public Health service did 40 year experiment-1932-1972. Many illiterate men from poor counties in Alabama were told they had 'bad blood' when they had contracted Syphalis. Untreated Syphallis is fatal, results in Blacks being unable to trust doctors.

Virgil Hawkins, George Starke, George Allen

Virgil Hawkins=sacrificed himself so that other students could enter UF. Responsible for Desegregation of UF and other Florida Schools by withdrawing his application from UF college of law. George Starke= First african American student admitted to UF's college of law in 1958. George Allen=First african american student to receive a degree from UF college of Law

Race-Lifting

When television and movies change the race it was originally written for. Examples include Sapphires, 21, Birth by Heart. They create misrepresentations.

Colonization

Whites brought Blacks to America.

Nature vs. Nurture

Why do we do what we do? Is it Hereditary or environmental? Nature Theory= focuses on genetic predispositions, Nurture Theory=focuses on how they are taught

Pan Africanism

belief in global unity of poeple of African descent for purposes of social, political, and economic empowerment.

Womanism

coined by Alice Walker in the book "In Search of Mother's Gardens: Womens Prose". A Black feminist or feminist of color. Celebrates blackness while being critical of gender and racial inequalities.

Emancipation Proclamation

effects on enslaved: ordered not to engage in violence, ordered to continue to work for wage, informed the UNion would protect them. Effects on slaveholders: slavery unaffected in states loyal to Union, south given 100 days to stop war and preserve slavery, states continued rebellion would see emancipation of slaves, no emancipation in DE, KY, MO, etc.

Banishment

ethnic cleansing, Taking Land, Texas Comanche County, Forsyth, Georgia 1912. Washington County, Indiana 1864. Pierce City, Missouri 1901. Creating issues for Blacks so whites can banish them.

*Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC)

founded in 1957. Martin Luther King Jr. was apart of group. Nonviolent, direct action.

Reparations

idea that some payment should be made to those who have ben enslaved or to their descendants-proposed compensation from US government

Culture

integrated system of learned behaviors, traditions, customs, and languages which is not biological inheritance.

African Cultural Unity

religion, socialization, democracy, family elders, language and writing, music and dance that all connects the African people despite the distances they traveled.

Africanisms/African Cultural Retentions

retentions=survival, adaptions-modifications. Traits and customs of African culture that have been maintained and reused. Like Africatown, where ship called Clotilda arrived in Mobile with100-160 enslaved Africans, slaves formed their own community and had a chief and maintained their language and government. Bottle trees, healing practices (George Washington Carver). Soul food, Drum, Influence of Black Music.

Instruments of Cultural Hegemony

school, military, law, mass media, symbols. Repetition of codes/symbols are what reinforce white superiority.

Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee SNCC

sit ins, Freedom Rides, Voting. Field workers: John Lewis, Hosea Williams, Stokey Carmichael, H. Rap Brown.

Socialization

the process of inheriting and projecting values, ideals, and norms into a group of people/culture, study of relationships, values, beliefs, organizational structures of societal groups (pg 100).