African American Organizations Research Articles

A Long Dark Night: Race in America from Jim Crow to World War II by J. Michael Martinez

Reviewed by: A Long Dark Night: Race in America from Jim Crow to World War II by J. Michael Martinez Joseph R. Fitzgerald A Long Dark Night: Race in America from Jim Crow to World War II. By J. Michael Martinez. ( Lanham, Md., and other cities: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016. Pp. xii, 423. $42.00, ISBN 978-1-4422-5994-2.) In A Long Dark Night: Race in America from Jim Crow to World War II,J. Michael Martinez attempts to provide a compelling synthesis of social, economic, and political actors and events that dominated American history from the end of the Civil War through World War II. Focusing on the southern region of the nation, Martinez shows how white politicians at the state and federal levels perpetuated and expanded racist discrimination and oppression. On some topics he succeeds in relaying important information to his intended audience (undergraduate and graduate students), but generally, Martinez's narrative style and focus prevent him from achieving his goal. Much of this book concerns racial segregation, but Martinez fails to show the vast array of legal (de jure) and customary (de facto) details of Jim Crow. Few students today know just how oppressive this apartheid system was—from the cradle to the grave—so Martinez misses an opportunity to show the absurdity of white supremacist ideology. Incidentally, his consistent use of the term white supremacy should be commended. Most authors shy away from using this accurate term and opt instead to use less precise ones such as discrimination, prejudice, and racism. At the same time, Martinez could be more precise in his use of language. When discussing black people, he should use the terms black people ox African Americans instead of using the archaic terms Negro and colored. Other examples of Martinez's curious word choice are found throughout his work. For example, he labels the abolitionist newspaper the Liberator a "rag," he describes one politician as an "angry rube," and in one instance he calls white men's sexual exploitation and assaults of black women as "trysts" (pp. 25, 138, 180). There are more than a few places where it is unclear whether Martinez is conveying the attitudes and beliefs of people he is writing about or whether he is assessing and critiquing them. This lack of clarity undermines his work. One particular strength of the book (likely a result of Martinez's career as an attorney) is its history of Supreme Court decisions, especially those pertaining to the Fourteenth Amendment. Rarely has an author detailed and described these cases so clearly. Other strengths include chapters 7 ("The Great Migration") and 9 ("The Rise of a New Black Culture"), which cover black people's agency to create positive changes in their lives. Apart from those chapters, however, Martinez's book is primarily a story of prominent and/or consequential white men who made black people's lives so hard. He makes only a few references to black men's agency. Left out is any comprehensive discussion of the vast array of African American fraternal organizations, as well as the mutual aid and self-help organizations, that black men established in partnership with black women. [End Page 463] Martinez reinforces this gendered history by using masculine pronouns to generalize about white and black people, and by his decision not to include any substantive information on women—black or white. When Martinez does mention women, he generally shows them only as victims of white men who wanted to control women at all costs. There is no mention of the National Association of Colored Women and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, both of which organized extensively around social issues and had strong influences on American society and politics. Martinez's omission of Ida B. Wells-Barnett's research on lynching is especially glaring. Her work The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States (1895) proved that white people used that terrorist tactic mainly to punish black men and women who had allegedly committed "offenses" against white individuals, such as fighting, arguing, and being "disrespectful," and to a lesser extent to protect white womanhood from "black brutes." On a related...

The Product of Our Souls: Ragtime, Race, and the Birth of the Manhattan Musical Marketplace

In the past decade ragtime has experienced a rebirth. Recent studies of early twentieth-century modernity have appropriately reoriented their attention to the age of ragtime, drawing attention to the musical form's cultural confluences. Reevaluating ragtime's cultural importance in the new American century calls attention to African American citizenship in the discourse about what, and who, produced distinctively American culture. The extent to which African American musical culture was reviled or celebrated by American national discourses of culture, profession, and policy indicates relative dispositions toward African American citizenship and acceptance. Ragtime's inclusion in modern America's composition was recognized mostly by its African American composers. Debating in the New York Times with the writer and former black bohemian lyrical composer James Weldon Johnson, the noted music critic Henry Krehbiel called ragtime “a degraded form of music” with brothel beginnings. The ragtime cultural debates emblematized these polemic attitudes about African American citizenship. White musicians guilds in this period “professionalized” their organizations by limiting the types of music they performed. Working from lower and midtown Manhattan, African American composers such as Johnson, J. Rosamond Johnson, Will Cook, Bob Cole, and Theodore Drury responded by presenting professionally oriented African American musicians, compositions, and organizations. At the center of efforts to protect and disseminate African American musical forms was the innovative composer, band leader, and organizer of a prototypical union and contracting agency for black musicians James Reese Europe.

Selma to Saigon: The Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam WarDaniel S.Lucks. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2014.

Selma to Saigon: The Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War Daniel S. Lucks. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2014.According to historian Daniel S. Lucks, the death toll of the Vietnam War was more than the millions of Vietnamese and fifty-plus thousand American troops. To the list of casualties we can add the Civil Rights Movement. In Selma to Saigon: The Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War, Lucks argues that the war not only extinguished the movement as a pressing national issue, it also spurred an internal fracturing of the Civil Rights coalition along generational and ideological lines.The relationship between the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War has been explored before, most notably in Simon Hall's Peace and Freedom: The Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements in the 1960s. Lucks extends this scholarship by anchoring his analysis in a Cold War context. critical move elucidates how the Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s created a political terrain that demarcated the fault lines for the Civil Rights coalition's eventual three-way split into moderates (NAACP and National Urban League) wedded to LBJ's anticommunist foreign policy, radicals (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC] and Congress of Racial Equality [CORE]) critical of America's colonial character, and hesitant critics of Vietnam (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.).Lucks begins by examining the effects of the postWorld War II Red Scare on African American intellectuals and organizations. Many of these early Civil Rights leaders viewed their racial oppression in Jim Crow America through an internationalist prism wherein racism was tied to colonialism and imperialism perpetrated by white oppressors against people of color. Their anticolonial critiques against American foreign policy, however, led to political persecution in the age of McCarthyism. Lucks argues convincingly that, in order to avoid being red-baited, prominent African American organizations like the NAACP and National Urban League quietly conformed to Cold War ideology, sealing a decades-long allegiance to liberal anticommunism, which set them at odds with others in the Civil Rights coalition.However, the Cold War orthodoxy that ensnared an older generation of Civil Rights activists didn't affect younger, more radical members of the coalition. As the war in Vietnam began to escalate in 1964 and 1965, African American activists and organizers within SNCC and CORE resurrected the racialized anti-colonial critique against American foreign policy that had been obliterated during the Red Scare, a position summed up most poignantly by SNCC chairman Stokely Carmichael: This Vietnam War ain't nothing but white sending black to kill brown men, to defend, so they claim, a country they stole from red men (122). …

The National Council of Negro Women and South Africa: Black Internationalism, Motherhood, and the Cold War

This article examines the black international organizing of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). Focusing predominantly on the NCNW’s work in South Africa, it explores the changing nature of black internationalism during the early Cold War. Faced with the destabilizing effects of anticommunism, many moderate African American organizations worked with the US government when pushing for decolonization in Africa. Engaging in recent historical debates concerning the global outlook of black liberal organizations, the article will examine both the limitations and possibilities of this kind of political strategy. By documenting the NCNW’s work with the African Children’s Feeding Scheme (ACFS) – a church based programme that aimed to tackle the widespread malnourishment of African children in Johannesburg in the 1950s – this piece goes on to explore the ways in which African American women used maternalist ideas to engage with the struggles of black women in Africa. The activities of the ACFS mirrored many of the historical race concerns of African American NCNW members. By adopting a transnational framework, the NCNW’s efforts to provide food and care for black South African children were based around a global understanding of black motherhood and the desire to secure the wellbeing of black children both at home and abroad.

We Ask Only for Even-Handed Justice: Black Voices from Reconstruction, 1865–1877 by John David Smith (review)

Reviewed by: We Ask Only for Even-Handed Justice: Black Voices from Reconstruction, 1865–1877 by John David Smith Jacob A. Glover (bio) We Ask Only for Even-Handed Justice: Black Voices from Reconstruction, 1865–1877. By John David Smith. (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014. Pp. 144. $18.95 paper) It has been over 150 years since Abraham Lincoln hallowed the ground and the Civil War at Gettysburg—even as he claimed he could not—by uttering one of the most remembered speeches in American history. The war that had begun as a means to preserve the Union, Lincoln assured his audience, had been transformed through sacrifice and bloodshed into one dedicated to human freedom and equality. Through the conflagration the nation must pass, so it seemed, in order to experience the “new birth of freedom” for all. Amidst the sesquicentennial of the war and Reconstruction, historians continue to discuss the promises and limitations of the freedom that African Americans had so dearly won. John David Smith’s We Ask Only for Even-Handed Justice (a revised and updated version of his 1996 publication, Black Voices from Reconstruction, 1865–1877) is a welcome addition to this debate. Building on an interpretive model first introduced over a century ago by W. E. B. Du Bois, Smith places the experience of the freed people at the center of Reconstruction and explores the meaning and limits of the “new birth of freedom” for the millions of African Americans emancipated before, during, and after the war. Topical chapters on subjects such as the unification of families sundered by slavery, the development of free labor in the South, the beginnings of African American political organization, the growth of black educational opportunities, and the extent of racial terrorism rather seamlessly introduce the reader to some of the most debated issues in Reconstruction historiography. Most intriguing is the way in which Smith accomplishes this by blending copious first-hand documentation, often in the form of direct quotation, into the larger narrative structure. In short, Smith delivers on the promise of his subtitle and allows the “black voices” to speak for themselves. The result is a noteworthy achievement that movingly relates the individual and [End Page 755] collective struggle of African Americans to find liberty, justice, and dignity within the racist strictures that many white Americans worked to erect in the postbellum United States. We Ask Only for Even-Handed Justice is meant to serve as an introduction to the complex subject of Reconstruction for high-school and college students—and to this end Smith succeeds with remarkable aplomb. The text is a readable, learned, and succinct account of the revolutionary transition from slavery to freedom that achieves a great deal in a little over one hundred pages. The helpful addition of a timeline and an index will undoubtedly benefit students grappling with the intricacies of Reconstruction for the first time, and a short historiographical section at the conclusion directs the piqued reader toward classic accounts of the era as well as a number of important recent publications. Although I would not hesitate to assign We Ask Only for Even-Handed Justice as required reading in any number of courses, several questions must be addressed. The first deals with chronology. According to the subtitle, Reconstruction occurred between 1865 and 1877. As Smith documents within the text through his emphasis on the “processes” (p. 9) of emancipation and Reconstruction, however, black freedom efforts predated the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment—and they continued far beyond the ill-fated Compromise of 1877. A related concern is that the book is largely focused on the transitional years of the 1860s, and as a result the latter stages of congressional Reconstruction receive far less coverage. Still, such quibbles should not distract us from recognizing the stirring account of Reconstruction that Smith has constructed. [End Page 756] Jacob A. Glover JACOB A. GLOVER is a PhD candidate at the University of Kentucky. His current research focuses on everyday racial violence during Reconstruction. Copyright © 2015 Kentucky Historical Society

Organizational Complexity and the Quest for Civil Rights

The traditional conception of an African American civil rights organization is one in which the primary focus of the organization is racial justice. The NAACP, National Urban League, and Southern Christian Leadership Conference fit this long and traditional mold. However, there are African American organizations that have what organizational behavior scholars would call “complex identities.” Such organizations have multiple constituent parts or identities. One type of organization that fits this mold, especially in the context of African American’s quest for racial justice and equality in the United States, are African American collegiate-based fraternities and sororities. Given the cultural-political, institutional, and organizational factors that gave rise to these organizations, it can be said that their identities are comprised of (1) intellectualism/academic achievement; (2) the development and sustaining of fictive kinship ties; (3) race consciousness; and (4) an abiding and life-long organizational commitment. Despite African American fraternities and sororities’ collective history of racial uplift activism via the American Council on Human Rights and their individual efforts, challenges that they face in each of their four identity domains likely undermine what could be their more meaningful and robust efforts in this regard.

Abstract B61: Evaluation of the prevalence of hypovitaminosis D and vitamin D awareness in African Americans living in a metropolitan southern community

Abstract Background: The health benefits associated with maintaining adequate circulating levels of vitamin D are well known. More recently, data have emerged supporting an inverse association between vitamin D levels and risk of several human cancers. Related to this, African Americans (AAs) are at increased risk of hypovitaminosis D due to elevated levels of melanin in the skin that reduce the conversion of cholesterol to vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol). Herein, we simultaneously assess levels of awareness regarding the health benefits of vitamin D and the prevalence of hypovitaminosis D in a metropolitan African American community. Methods: From January 2012 through August 2013, we partnered with African American churches and community organizations in the metropolitan Jacksonville, FL area to provide nine education programs focused on vitamin D and the evidence linking poor vitamin D levels with increased risk of chronic disease, including cancer. Participants were offered free vitamin D testing to estimate the prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency (<25 ng/mL) and deficiency (< 15 ng/mL) in this population. Moreover, participants also completed surveys prior to the events to assess their awareness of issues related to vitamin D, including the emerging link with cancer risk. Results: Out of 305 attendees, 285 agreed to provide blood samples for vitamin D screening. Of these, 262 (92%) self-identified as African American (75% female, 25% male). The median age of the AA participants was 59 years. Laboratory testing for 25(OH) vit D revealed 43% of the AA participants had normal levels of vitamin D (>25 ng/mL), 35% had insufficient levels (15-24 ng/mL) and 22% had deficient levels (< 15 ng/mL). Of interest, despite the high level of hypovitaminosis D (insufficient + deficient) in this population, participants reported high levels of awareness regarding vitamin D prior to the education program. For example, 82% of AA respondents correctly answered that the main source of vitamin D came from sunlight and 76% correctly answered that AAs are at risk of lower levels of vitamin D because of the amount of melanin in the skin. Moreover, 83% of AA respondents answered that maintaining proper vitamin D levels could potentially decrease risk for various chronic health conditions, including certain cancers. Finally, 75% of the AA participants reported never having had a vitamin D test discussed with them by their doctor. Conclusions: We report a high prevalence of hypovitaminosis D in a large AA community in Jacksonville, FL. Moreover, we report that despite this high prevalence, awareness of the health benefits of vitamin D are high, yet regular vitamin D testing levels appear to be very low. These data provide the foundation for developing targeted interventions to raise vitamin D levels in this community. Citation Format: Alexander Parker, Monica Albertie, Nancy Diehl, Matthew Drake. Evaluation of the prevalence of hypovitaminosis D and vitamin D awareness in African Americans living in a metropolitan southern community. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Sixth AACR Conference: The Science of Cancer Health Disparities; Dec 6–9, 2013; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2014;23(11 Suppl):Abstract nr B61. doi:10.1158/1538-7755.DISP13-B61

African American women's perceptions and attitudes regarding participation in medical research: the Mayo Clinic/The Links, Incorporated partnership.

To examine perceptions and attitudes toward health-related research participation among professional African American women. Participants were members of an African American women's service organization, The Links, Incorporated. Data were collected via self-administered questionnaires at The Links, Incorporated 2012 National Assembly. Sociodemographics, prior research experience, intention to participate (ITP), willingness to participate (WTP) in a variety of research studies and attitudes about research participation were measured. A total of 381 surveys were analyzed. A majority of respondents were married (66%), employed (69%), and college educated (96%). Median age was 59; 38% reported prior research participation. Overall, 78% agreed with the statement, "Participation in research will mean better care," 24% agreed "Participation in research is risky" and 3% agreed "Scientists cannot be trusted." Fifty-two percent agreed with the statement, "Research conducted in the U.S. is ethical." Mean ITP in research was 4.9±1.7 on a rating scale of 1 ("definitely no") to 7 ("definitely yes"). WTP was highest for an interview study and providing a blood sample, and lowest for clinical trial and medical record review. Attitudes toward research participation were generally favorable among professional African American women; many expressed WTP in a variety of research study types.

A Community-based Collaborative Approach to Improve Breast Cancer Screening in Underserved African American Women

Although African American women in the United States have a lower incidence of breast cancer compared with white women, those younger than 40 years actually have a higher incidence rate; additionally, African American women are more likely to die from breast cancer at every age compared with white women. Racial disparities in breast cancer mortality rates are especially significant in Maryland, which ranks fifth in the nation for breast cancer mortality, and in Baltimore City, which has the second highest annual death rate for African American women in Maryland. To address this disparity in care, Med-IQ, an accredited provider of CME, collaborated with Sisters Network Baltimore Metropolitan, Affiliate Chapter of Sisters Network® Inc., the only national African American breast cancer survivorship organization, to sponsor their community-based educational outreach initiative. The collaborative mission was to engage at-risk African American women, their families, local organizations, healthcare professionals, and clinics, with the goals of increasing awareness, addressing fears that affect timely care and diagnosis, and encouraging women to obtain regular mammograms. Intervention strategies included (1) a "Survivor Stories" video, (2) patient outreach consisting of neighborhood walks and an educational luncheon, and (3) a community outreach utilizing direct mailings to local businesses, community groups, and healthcare professionals. Trusted and well-known community resources were presented as mediums to promote the initiative, yielding achievement of broader and more effective outcomes. As a result of this patient-friendly initiative, two (2) of the women who sought screening were diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent treatment.

Centrality and Circumstance: Influences of Multidimensional Racial Identity on African American Student Organization Involvement

In order to explore the social realities and centrality of race for African American students at a predominantly white institution, this inquiry applied case study methodology to the multidimensional model of racial identity (MMRI). Rather than following quantitative methodology which operationalizes racial identity through surveys, the study utilized in-depth interviews to capture students' racial realities. Directly utilizing survey items from the multidimensional inventory of black identity (MIBI) in the interview protocol, this methodology allowed participants to be reflective of the influence of the institutional environment. Findings revealed insight regarding how African American students exhibit their understandings of race through involvement in student organizations. Challenges to overcoming stereotypes and barriers to black group connectivity gave evidence to the need for a heterogeneous approach to the involvement and identity development of African American students.

Abstract P1-09-02: GIS exploration: Might triple negative breast cancer patients face disparities in access to clinical trials due to distance?

Abstract Background The incidence of triple negative breast cancer among African-American women and Latinas with breast cancer has been estimated to be at least 25%. Black and Latina women tend to develop the disease at a younger age than white women. Preliminary research evidence suggests that there are racial differences in survival for triple negative breast cancer with African-American women more likely to experience disease progression while undergoing chemotherapy. We sought to identify and map the geographic US distribution of clinical trials enrolling patients with triple negative breast cancer and to examine the proximity of these trials to populations of Hispanic/Latina and African American women diagnosed with breast cancer. We followed this analysis with an exploratory mapping of community-based resources to reduce cancer disparities among underserved populations in two states Methods We used geographic information systems (GIS) and asset mapping tools to visually depict trials enrolling patients with triple negative breast cancer in the US, using data provided by Breastcancertrials.org. We compared the locations of the trials and breast cancer incidence among Latinas and African American women and created mortality ratios using SEER data. We also explored available patient resources in the context of geography and populations of interest for two states with significant populations of both African Americans and Hispanic/Latinas–Texas and California. We engaged breast cancer advocacy and other cancer advocacy as well as healthcare organizations in developing our resource maps. We mapped directories of patient resources in our two states, and discuss the challenges, lessons learned, and future directions for using GIS mapping of populations and resources for research and practice. Results Our maps show distinct patterns of populations of African American Women and Latinas diagnosed with breast cancer in relationship to trials enrolling TNBC patients. Our asset driven, community-based approach illustrated the distribution of locations of Latina and African American breast cancer populations and organizations that offer supportive resources. In both Texas and California, there are regions where Latina and African American women may suffer disparities both in lack of access to clinical trials and in community-based resources that could support their efforts to participate in clinical trials. Conclusion These transdisciplinary community mapping efforts of both trials and patient resources highlight the benefit of innovative community,academic, and clinical partnerships for addressing cancer health disparities in clinical trials. GiS mapping offers the potential to identify barriers to care among underserved populations and provides a useful and innovative format for discussions about community capacity-building in order to increase access to breast cancer trials among vulnerable populations. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2013;73(24 Suppl): Abstract nr P1-09-02.

Ardent citizens: African American Elks and the fight for equal employment opportunities

The Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World (IBPOEW), an African American fraternal order established in 1897, is, like other fraternal groups, a benevolent association. However, black Elks express a large part of their fraternalism in political agitation. Routinely viewed merely as mutual aid societies, black fraternal organizations are not conceptualized as groups of labour activists. By examining the Elks' use of citizenship rights in the fight to expand employment opportunities, this article demonstrates that the IBPOEW, with its extraordinary departmental structure, consistently fought for African Americans' rights as workers. It suggests that African American fraternal organizations offer an additional domain in which we can find black workers engaged in labour struggles. Therefore, the article broadens labour studies historiography to include an analysis of black fraternal organizations as sites where workers develop solidarity and participate in labour activism with and without labour unions.

The Black Man's Nod

The Black Man's Nod Mukoma Wa Ngugi (bio) On State Street, Madison, Wisconsin, across a crowd of white faces, a black man sends a quick sharp nod my way. A few minutes later, a fellow black man with dreadlocks double taps his heart followed by the peace sign by way of greeting. Same thing when a few months later I am in Shaker Heights, OH, or years earlier in Boston MA, Reading, PA, and New Haven, CT. We are strangers somehow unified by our blackness in a backdrop of whiteness—at least in part. The nod does not extend to hippies, bohemians, granolas, or frat boys with blond dreadlocks; rather it has been, in my experience, a black-male affair in predominantly white environments. I was born in Evanston, Illinois, to Kenyan parents but after six or so months, too short a time to have truly imbibed lessons on race, we moved back to Kenya. In Kenya the question of race was not part of daily discourse. I did not know blackness—not in an American sense anyway. True the principle that under-girds racism—discriminating against another—existed. I came to know virulent hatred especially against the Kenyan Indian and other ethnicities in Kenya. But being part of the majority, the Gikuyu, I did not know what it was like to be a minority. I grew up with the swagger of the majority. It was in New Haven, Connecticut, that the Black Man's nod first came into my life—and what a stranger it was. The summer of 1990 found my father, writer Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, in political exile, back in the US and teaching at Yale University. So after finishing high school, it was at Yale where I joined him after an eight year separation. Yale is a bastion of privilege and excess but is surrounded by economically depressed, primarily black neighborhoods, and I remember being informed by a university employee to be careful not to stray too far from the campus. My first lesson in race relations: stay away from them—it is a matter of life and death. I do not remember the first nod in New Haven, but still strongly fortified by my "Kenyanness" and being a quick learner picking up stereotypical views of African Americans, my response quickly became one of suspicion and skepticism. When a few months into college an African American asked me if we live in trees I was quick to retort that African Americans are drug addicts, obnoxiously loud, and should not be pointing fingers. We almost came to blows. It was not until an African American fellow female student sat us down and told us without mincing words we were both wrong; that we were victims who saw each other through the lens of racism. She was right then and now. The stereotypes for both African and African Americans are quickly learned because they are all around us—from movies, TV shows, news, comic books, and novels to the history being taught in high schools both the African and the African American do not fare well at all. History binds us, slavery both pulls and repels [End Page 86] us, colonialism and racism makes us familiar to each other but we see each other through a lens full of stereotypes and racism. Put simply, our relationship is mitigated by white-colored lenses that see the state of black America as loud, poor, drugged, and violent, and the state of Africa as warring, starving, and skeletal kids with runny noses, a continent dying from AIDS victims. The result is a mutual attraction that at the same time repels. This is not to say that we have not tried to rise up above this. One only needs to mention W. E. B. DuBois or Kwame Ture or largely African American organizations like Trans-Africa Forum which fought against Apartheid in South Africa or Africa Action, which lobbies for Africa related causes in Washington. So Africans in the United States find themselves in a rather complex relationship with African Americans. But when this relationship is not nurtured or consciously steered away from mutual angst and stereotypes it can quickly...

Unintended Consequence of the Faith-Based Initiative

The faith-based initiative announced in 2001 was accompanied by media coverage, new funding mechanisms, and state-level policies requiring the inclusion of faith-based organizations (FBOs) in Requests for Proposals. This study examined 33 organizations’ expression of religious identity through (a) proportion of board and (b) staff who were coreligionist; (c) change in proportion of revenues from public sources; (d) strategies for seeking resources; and (e) religious elements in service provision, staff training, and board meeting procedures. Interview transcripts from the Faith and Organizations Project, annual reports, and financial information were examined. Analysis suggested four patterns (no change, increased government funding related to the faith-based initiative, strategies for seeking resources, and active preservation of religious identity). Four African American organizations received funding connected to the faith-based initiative and 14 utilized or preserved religious identity. Faith-based policies are discussed as inadvertently affirming organizational distinctiveness and religious identity among some faith-based organizations.

Labor, Finance, and Counterrevolution: Finally Got the News at the End of the Short American Century

This article revisits the crisis of the American automotive industry and Fordist industrial labor in the late 1960s and early 1970s through the lens of the radical African American labor organization at the heart of that industry. By way of an analysis of the film Finally Got the News (1970), it considers the activities of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in order to reexamine the dynamics of transition between industrial and financial capitalism as they are captured in this crisis of Detroit at the end of the “American century.” It argues that struggles around labor management in the crises of the Keynesian era implicitly foretold strategies of financial control in our present.

The anthropology of nepotism

Nepotism is widespread in organizations in developing countries but has so far received scant attention in cross-cultural management research. The paper seeks to contribute to the underdeveloped research topic suggesting an anthropological explanation of nepotism. It is argued that nepotism reflects the presence of tribal and peasant social morals in organizations where they replace norms and principles typical of industrial society. Examples from African and Latin American organizations show how nepotism works, and drawing on quantitative data it is suggested that nepotism is relatively common in countries at the earlier stages of industrial development. Four managerial approaches to nepotism are outlined: managers can accept nepotistic ambiguity; they can attempt to strengthen the modern organization; they can use the tribal and peasant norms underlying nepotism as the basic principle of the organization; or they can codify the pre-industrial norms and make them part of the formal organization.

The Making of an African American Foreign Policy Lobby: The American Negro Leadership Conference on Africa

The American Negro Leadership Conference on Africa (ANLCA) became adevice of the African American elite for influencing United States policytoward Sub-Saharan Africa between 1962 and 1967, and for intervening inAfrican affairs. Yet, its origin and identity have been largely taken forgranted. The story that is usually told is that the ANLCA, founded in 1962,was an African American organization that was the brainchild of GeorgeHouser. The implication is that the ANLCA was consciously created ab initioas an organization for African Americans by Houser. Why would Housercause to be established an African American organization to pursue thesame objectives as his American Committee on Africa? By problematizingthe origin and identity of the ANLCA, the paper draws attention to thetradition of organizational support for African causes in the United States,and the circumstances that gave form to the ANLCA. It contends that whatHouser proposed, and the African American civil rights elite joined inorganizing, was a conference on Africa, nothing more. That the ANLCAoutlasted the Arden House Conference was not the original design of eitherHouser or the African American civil rights elite or an intended outcome. Asa foreign policy lobby organization, therefore, the ANLCA was a historicalaccident. …U.S.-African relations cannot be adequately understoodunless it is examined within the context of its domesticconstituency

Icons of black America: breaking barriers and crossing boundaries

This stunning collection of essays illuminates the lives and legacies of the most famous and powerful individuals, groups, and institutions in African American history. The three-volume Icons of Black America: Breaking Barriers and Crossing Boundaries is an exhaustive treatment of 100 African American people, groups, and organizations, viewed from a variety of perspectives. The alphabetically arranged entries illuminate the history of highly successful and influential individuals who have transcended mere celebrity to become representatives of their time. It offers analysis and perspective on some of the most influential black people, organizations, and institutions in American history, from the late 19th century to the present. Each chapter is a detailed exploration of the life and legacy of an individual icon. Through these portraits, readers will discover how these icons have shaped, and been shaped by, the dynamism of American culture, as well as the extent to which modern mass media and popular culture have contributed to the rise, and sometimes fall, of these powerful symbols of individual and group excellence. * 100 alphabetically arranged profiles, each accompanied by a photograph

The African American Experience during World War II (review)

Reviewed by: The African American Experience during World War II Kevin Allen Leonard (bio) The African American Experience during World War II. By Neil A. Wynn. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010. Pp. xix, 163. $34.95) Since the publication of Neil A. Wynn's path-breaking study, The Afro-American and the Second World War in 1973, dozens of other historians have examined the impact of the war on African Americans. In this new book, Wynn masterfully synthesizes this literature, noting the continuities between African Americans' prewar experiences and their wartime and postwar experiences and pointing out the numerous ways in which the war changed the lives of African Americans. Wynn briefly traces African American service in the U.S. military prior to World War II, noting that black soldiers received numerous commendations despite the fact that they were frequently relegated to service or support roles. He observes that rioting in the 1910s and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s reminded African Americans that the Great War had not fundamentally changed the racial order in the United States. In the 1920s and 1930s, many African [End Page 130] Americans joined organizations such as Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and the Communist Party with the goal of ending racial discrimination and violence. Most of the book focuses on the events of the 1940s. Wynn points out that African American leaders failed to persuade President Franklin D. Roosevelt to end segregation in the armed forces, but A. Philip Randolph's March on Washington Movement convinced Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802. This order banned racial discrimination by military contractors and established the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC). Wynn concedes that the FEPC did not have the power to end discrimination completely, but he insists that its establishment was a significant precursor of later changes in federal policy. The military remained segregated throughout the war, but African American soldiers and African American organizations persistently protested both segregation and the mistreatment of African American soldiers. The wartime labor shortage offered African Americans unprecedented economic opportunities. The need of manufacturers for workers eventually overrode their racial prejudices. The promise of good jobs lured hundreds of thousands of African Americans to northern and western cities, where they encountered persistent housing discrimination. The tensions surrounding housing led in part to rioting in Detroit in 1943. Wynn notes that the war inspired many African Americans to take action to end discrimination. Pauli Murray, for example, staged sit-ins at Washington, D.C., restaurants in 1943 and 1944, and activists affiliated with the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation organized the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942. Wynn concludes by focusing on the immediate postwar years. He indicates that many African American veterans took advantage of the G.I. Bill of Rights, although Lizabeth Cohen demonstrates in A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in America (2003) that discrimination seriously limited the benefits that African American veterans derived from this legislation. Many veterans [End Page 131] encountered violence when they returned to the South. More than twenty-five African Americans were killed in racially motivated incidents between 1945 and 1947. Wynn defends Truman's record on civil rights, pointing out that he supported a permanent FEPC and appointed a committee to study civil rights. In addition to a thorough and concise synthetic narrative, this book contains a chronology of significant events in African American history from 1938 until 1948, forty pages of documents, and a seven-page annotated bibliography. The documents include excerpts from the writings of W. E. B. Du Bois, A. Philip Randolph, William H. Hastie, and Walter White. The brevity of this narrative and the chronology and documents should make this book ideal for assignment in courses in African American history when a paperback edition is published. Kevin Allen Leonard Kevin Allen Leonard teaches history at Western Washington University in Billingham, Washington. He is the author of The Battle for Los Angeles: Racial Ideology and World War II (2006) and is currently engaged in research on African Americans and the environment in post-World War II Southern California. Copyright © 2011 Kentucky Historical Society

Abstract A12: You're putting what, where? Using humor to increase colonoscopy rates among African Americans

Abstract Background: Despite a decrease in overall cancer incidence and mortality since 1992, African Americans continue to experience higher incidence and mortality rates and lower survival rates from this disease than any other population group. While much is known about the benefits of cancer prevention and early detection, African Americans, even those who are insured, are less likely to participate in cancer screening and more likely to engage in behaviors that increase their risk for cancer than whites. When cancer is diagnosed, they are also less likely to receive high-quality treatment. This is largely due to lack of access to quality care and accurate information. Many myths exist in the African American community regarding cancer. Health information presented in a way that is sensitive to culture and belief systems can result in optimal decision making. Information is a critical step to improve cancer health outcomes. Traditional health communication materials and delivery mechanisms have not been culturally appropriate and fall short in addressing the cancer information needs of many African Americans. Using celebrities to communicate messages is believed to be effective at increasing awareness and influencing behavior. This presentation is a pilot study that will determine if combining humor with cancer prevention messages delivered by a well-known celebrity will increase cancer awareness and colorectal cancer screening behavior in the African American community. Objectives: At the conclusion of this presentation, the participant will be able to: 1) Evaluate the benefits of using a celebrity to deliver cancer messages; 2) Incorporate humor and cultural sensitivity in cancer screening information; 3) Identify strategies for selecting celebrities and partnerships for cancer communication activities. Methods: Employing the narrative technique, a nationally known African American comedian discussed the importance of colorectal cancer screening to African Americans using humor and a video of his personal experience with colonoscopy. There were three main channels for dissemination: 1) placement on a YouTube channel, 2) an e-marketing campaign to African American partner organizations and, 3) creation of an engagement toolkit used by American Cancer Society staff engaged in outreach activities. The pilot, conducted in May 2010 in partnership with the Florida Department of Public Health, AvMed, and Blue Cross Blue Shield health plans in the Miami-Dade area, included direct mailing 50,000 copies of the video to clinic patients and plan members as well as wrapping public buses and displaying billboards with the celebrity's image and health messages. Results: The video was viewed more than 15,000 times online. Early survey results indicate an increase in colorectal cancer awareness and colonoscopy appointments among African Americans. Conclusions: By engaging a noted celebrity as a health communicator, the American Cancer Society informed and motivated African Americans with a culturally competent message. The use of humor in the personal narrative and modeling behavior debunked myths surrounding colorectal cancer and increased screening rates. Research is needed to evaluate the impact of the narrative as related to the celebrity's gender, role as a comedian or other type of entertainer, and degree of popularity: local vs. national. Citation Information: Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2010;19(10 Suppl):A12.