African American Pioneers Research Articles

Fab five: pioneering sociocultural influence within the culture of basketball and American society.

Dating back to when the inventor of the game, James Naismith, developed a mentoring relationship with John McClendon one of the African American pioneers in basketball (founder of the "fast-break"), there are countless examples of these intersections. Entering the college basketball culture as the most decorated recruiting class in National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball history, the University of Michigan Fab Five's legacy catalyzes a new era of American basketball culture. Gracefully talented, the Fab Five abruptly disrupted the institution of basketball, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and the identity of basketball athletes globally. This paper presents a sociocultural exploration of the residual impact of the Fab Five's legacy. As authentic, confident, and culturally competent, the five young men intentionally resisted and acknowledged the intersections of race, culture, and class within the college basketball culture. We critically assess the evolution of basketball culture, grounded by the sociocultural experiences of the Fab Five, imprinting upon contemporary generations of college basketball programs and their player. Through these experiences, the Fab Five's success through conflict, during their short stint in college basketball and beyond their professional careers trailblazed a path for the modern-day basketball athlete. Known for their style of play, their expression of fashion on and off the court, and eagerness to talk smack, the Fab Five backed up their talk with performance. Their performance on and off the court, revolutionized the culture of basketball; Even more, American society. The Fab Five's legacy is the cultural catalyst for basketball culture on all levels.

Correction to: R.H. Bragg: An African American Pioneer in X-Ray Crystallography, X-Ray Diffraction, and Materials Characterization

Correction to: R.H. Bragg: An African American Pioneer in X-Ray Crystallography, X-Ray Diffraction, and Materials Characterization

R.H. Bragg: An African American Pioneer in X-Ray Crystallography, X-Ray Diffraction, and Materials Characterization

R.H. Bragg: An African American Pioneer in X-Ray Crystallography, X-Ray Diffraction, and Materials Characterization

Political Advocacy Without a Choice

From social work’s early days, African American social workers were engaged in what today is termed as political social work, yet their work is often overlooked in both social work education and the broader retelling of our profession’s history. This article examines the early history of African American political social work, using Lane and Pritzker’s (2018) five domains of political social work. We outline ways in which African American social workers’ lived experiences led them to engage in political social work to support community survival and to challenge injustice during the Black Migration period post-slavery, the Jim Crow Era, and the Civil Rights Movement. Even as broader structural dynamics sought to exclude African Americans from the political arena, dynamic and influential African American social workers laid the groundwork for modern political social work. They politically engaged their communities, lobbied for legislation, worked in the highest levels of government, supported campaigns, and ran and held elective office to ensure that civil rights were given and maintained. This manuscript calls for a shift from social work’s white-dominant historical narrative and curricula (Bell, 2014; DeLoach McCutcheon, 2019) to assertive discussion of the historic roles African American political social work pioneers played in furthering political empowerment and challenging social injustice.

:The Second Generation of African American Pioneers in Anthropology. Ira E. Harrison, Deborah Johnson‐Simon, and Erica Lorraine Williams, eds. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 2018. xxvi + 227pp. (Cloth US$99.00; Paper US$28.00; E‐book US$19.95)

Transforming AnthropologyVolume 28, Issue 1 p. 95-96 Book Review The Second Generation of African American Pioneers in Anthropology. Ira E. Harrison, Deborah Johnson-Simon, and Erica Lorraine Williams, eds. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 2018. xxvi + 227pp. (Cloth US$99.00; Paper US$28.00; E-book US$19.95) Vernon J. Williams Jr, Corresponding Author Vernon J. Williams Jr vewillia@indiana.edu African American and African Diaspora Studies, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, 47405Search for more papers by this author Vernon J. Williams Jr, Corresponding Author Vernon J. Williams Jr vewillia@indiana.edu African American and African Diaspora Studies, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, 47405Search for more papers by this author First published: 30 March 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/traa.12175Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume28, Issue1April 2020Pages 95-96 RelatedInformation

The Life of Solomon Carter Fuller: An African American Pioneer in Neurology (P5.298)

The Life of Solomon Carter Fuller: An African American Pioneer in Neurology (P5.298)

Ten African American Pioneers and Mathematicians Who Inspired Me

Ten African American Pioneers and Mathematicians Who Inspired Me

Morphology, Provenance, and Decomposition of a 19th Century Hybrid Dugout and Sod House in Nicodemus, Kansas

During the summer of 2009, researchers and students traveled to Nicodemus, Kansas to investigate a settlement home of African American pioneers. In the late 19th century, new arrivals in the Midwest often constructed dugouts and sod houses to quickly build shelters. Although sod structures began to disappear in the 1900's, their decomposed remains left clues in the soil that would tell us the story of their existence. Our team sought to identify and define sod remains that were once a part of an early home. Specifically, we studied the remains of one hybrid dugout and sod home and our goal was to collect data that would support the identification of materials used and how the structure has decomposed over time. Soil color, particle size analysis data, and micromorphology were used to compare and contrast the sod blocks from with other soil materials at the site. Generally, there is now a thin mantle of soil that has eroded from an upper landscape position and that now buries the site; dark rectangular blo...

From Blackface to Beulah: Subtle Subversion in Early Black Sitcoms

In 1965 the actor/comedian Bill Cosby made television history as the first African American to star in a dramatic series produced by a major network. No doubt inspired by the successes of the Civil Rights Movement, NBC’s decision to air I Spy had broken with a decade old tradition to severely curtail and/or altogether omit black actors from television. This exclusionary practice had been precipitated by the economic pressures applied by both blacks and whites as they boycotted the sponsors of what they deemed to be objectionable depictions of black life. While black leaders and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) pleaded for more ‘positive’ depictions of African Americans, Southern white supremacists rejected anything but the most stereotypical and retrogressive interpretation of blacks. Television’s early black actresses operated within this context and were challenged with the seemingly impossible task of imparting negatively stereotyped roles – the only ones available to African Americans between 1951 and 1954 – with dignity. Through their interpretations Ethel Waters, Hattie McDaniel, Ernestine Wade, and Amanda Randolph were able to create layered characters that appealed to both whites and blacks. These talented actresses utilized nuance and body language to create a subtext that helped to alleviate the racist content of period programs, and thus communicated more to their diverse audiences than a cursory evaluation of their lines might suggest. Although the major television networks responded to the complaints by simply refusing to cast African American leads, the subtle acts of subversion employed by the female characters on Beulah and Amos ‘n’ Andy helped to humanize the black experience and challenged racial dogma, in turn making the comedic careers of subsequent African American pioneers possible.

A sociological dilemma: Race, segregation and US sociology.

US sociology has been historically segregated in that, at least until the 1960s, there were two distinct institutionally organized traditions of sociological thought – one black and one white. For the most part, however, dominant historiographies have been silent on that segregation and, at best, reproduce it when addressing the US sociological tradition. This is evident in the rarity with which scholars such as WEB Du Bois, E Franklin Frazier, Oliver Cromwell Cox, or other ‘African American Pioneers of Sociology’, as Saint-Arnaud calls them, are presented as core sociological voices within histories of the discipline. This article addresses the absence of African American sociologists from the US sociological canon and, further, discusses the implications of this absence for our understanding of core sociological concepts. With regard to the latter, the article focuses in particular on the debates around equality and emancipation and discusses the ways in which our understanding of these concepts could be extended by taking into account the work of African American sociologists and their different interpretations of core themes.

Embodying Social Work as a Profession

The purpose of this research is to highlight competing and contrasting definitions of social work that have been the subject of continuous ideological debate. These opposing interpretations have characterized public and professional discourse. It is the growth of, and struggle over, these conflicting versions of social work that we trace by exploring and expanding on the work of African American and White social work pioneers, feminist and empowerment epistemologies, and implications for social work practice and pedagogy. Our discussion emphasizes the construction of meaning through personal experiences by reuniting the head, hands, heart, and soul of our profession. We offer a reconstructed framework that echoes the groundbreaking work of our historical pioneers and collectively weaves their wisdom into contemporary social work practice.

Black California: A Literary Anthology (review)

Reviewed by: Black California: A Literary Anthology Blake Allmendinger Black California: A Literary Anthology. Edited by Aparajita Nanda. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Press, 2011. 333 pages, $24.95. Aparajita Nanda’s recent anthology offers a kaleidoscopic array of writings by California’s African American pioneers and modern-day residents, well-known and relatively obscure historical figures, social critics and political activists, novelists, poets, and dramatists. Many readers will be familiar with such contributors as Wallace Thurman, Eldridge Cleaver, Wanda Coleman, Walter Mosley, Bebe Moore Campbell, and Arna Bontemps, whose most famous works have been excerpted or reprinted here, though they will also be delighted to encounter less familiar pieces by some of the biggest names in African American literature. For example, Nanda includes Langston Hughes’s previously unpublished one-act play Hollywood Mammy, which addresses the lack of non-stereotypical film roles available to women of color. Written in 1940, the play reflects African American sentiment shortly after Hattie McDaniel won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Gone with the Wind. Also featured is an essay by Chester Himes about the Zoot Suit riots in Los Angeles, and a short story by Ernest Gaines, the author of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman (1971). Nanda has arranged the selections in roughly chronological order, which would seem to make sense—although it might have been better if she had provided a longer introduction, outlining the evolution of African American culture, or identifying shifts in attitudes as regional writers responded to California over the course of several centuries. Without such a framework, the entries in the anthology feel disconnected and must be evaluated on their individual merits. The reasons for including certain entries seem unclear. Some writers only resided in California for a brief period of time, including James Madison Bell; [End Page 460] James Beckwourth, who spent most of his life as a fur-trapper in the Rocky Mountain West; Alice Walker, who wrote The Color Purple (1982) while living in northern California; and Terry McMillan, whose story “The End” (1976) is actually set in Detroit. A number of the entries have nothing to do with California in terms of their content, including Eloise Bibb Thompson’s poem “A Garland of Prayer,” and Stanley Crouch’s essay “Blue-Collar Clarity,” which deals with the notion of identity politics in literature and popular culture. Other contributors, such as Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of California, was a major political figure in the mid-nineteenth century, though his letter to the United States Consul at Monterey—the first entry in the anthology—is a document of little historical interest. This book is essentially about the relationship between region and race. However, Nanda hasn’t thought sufficiently about what makes someone a black California writer. Is it the person’s race, place of birth, or the subject matter of the writing itself ? [End Page 461] Blake Allmendinger University of California, Los Angeles Copyright © 2012 Western Literature Association

John Ballard and the African American Community in Los Angeles, 1850–1905

John Ballard, an African American pioneer from Kentucky, became a leader of Los Angeles's black community, 1850s–1870s. His story illustrates the early opportunities for black Angelenos in institution-formation, political activism, property ownership, and economic success. However, with the railroad booms of the 1870s and 1880s, Ballard and other prominent black citizens suffered a loss of social and economic status. Ballard ended up homesteading in the Santa Monica Mountains.

African American Pioneers of Sociology: A Critical History

African American Pioneers of Sociology: A Critical History

Blue Skies, Black Wings: African American Pioneers of Aviation

Blue Skies, Black Wings: African American Pioneers of Aviation

Three Lives of an African American Pioneer: William Henry Lewis (1868-1949)

Three Lives of an African American Pioneer: William Henry Lewis (1868-1949)

Criminal justice pioneers: A content analysis of biographical data

This study used relational content analysis to assess the relative importance of criminal justice pioneers (N = 44) as identified by Jones (2005). Comparisons were made in terms of race, gender, area of focus, level of education, era of birth, longevity, and the amount of space (i.e., pages) devoted to each biography. The results were threefold: (1) most of the designated pioneers were born between 1901 and 1950 where a significant number contributed in the area of law enforcement, (2) all women pioneers were Caucasian and outnumbered African American pioneers by more than more than a 2:1 ratio, and (3) men were ten times more likely than women to be regarded as pioneers. The implications of these findings are discussed regarding the perceived relative importance of certain personalities based on the amount of space devoted to their bibliography.

Blue skies, black wings: African American pioneers of aviation

At the age of seventeen, Samuel L. Broadnax, enamored with flying, enlisted and trained as a pilot at the Tuskegee Army Air Base. Although he left the Air Corps at the end of the Second World War, his experiences inspired him to talk with other pilots and black pioneers of aviation. Blue Skies, Black Wings recounts the history of African Americans in the skies from the very beginnings of manned flight. From Charles Wesley Peters, who flew his own plane in 1911, and Eugene Bullard, a black American pilot with the French in World War I, to the 1945 Freeman Field mutiny against segregationist policies in the Air Corps, Broadnax paints a vivid picture of the people who fought oppression to make the skies their own.

Respite from War: Buffalo Soldiers at Vancouver Barracks, 1899-1900

GREGORY PAYNTER SHINE Respite from War BuffaloSoldiersatVancouverBarracks, 1899-1900 ON THE EVENING OF APRIL 3, 1899, the steamer Undine arrived at thewharf inVancouver, Washington, following a short jaunt across the Columbia River from nearby Portland, Oregon. Although thiswas not an uncommon occurrence ? the sternwheeler traveled like clockwork between Portland and Vancouver twice each day ? a large crowd had gathered, including several officers fromVancouver Barracks, the local U.S. Army post. Among the Undine's usual consignment of passengers that evening were more than one hundred soldiers. Many eyes observed them closely as they disembarked, the crossed rifle insignia on their headgear familiar tomany of those assembled. The insignia indicated that the soldiers were members of the infantry,not the artillery or cavalry, but perhaps it was the number atop the solid brass insignia that caught the crowd's attention ? the "24" that glinted in the lightsof thewharf as the soldiers gathered theirbelongings ? and the color of the soldiers' skin. They were Buffalo Soldiers, African American soldiers from Company B of the Twenty-fourth United States Infantry Regiment.1 The story of themen of Company B and their thirteen months atVancouver Barracks contributes to our understanding of black western military and urban history, to the broader story of Buffalo Soldiers in theAmerican West, and to the importance ofVancouver Barracks in the Buffalo Soldier diaspora.2 By the time of Company b's arrival at Vancouver Barracks, African Americans had carved out tenuous communities in Portland and Vancou ver. There is little question that African Americans had run into hostile attitudes in the Oregon Country, especially south of the Columbia River. As a result of racial attitudes and restrictions, several African American pioneers ? including Tumwater founder George Washington Bush and Centralia founder George Washington ? chose to live north of the river, OHQ vol. 107, no. 2 ? 2006 Oregon Historical Society WmFW *- * X Edward Gibson, pictured hereas a trooper with theTenthCavalry early inhis career, retired at Vancouver Barracks as a sergeant in 1900 after more than thirty years in thearmy. When he retired,thearmy sfourAfricanAmerican regimentshad higher re-enlistment rates than white regiments. Shine,Buffalo Soldiers atVancouver Barracks 197 establishing a population base that led in part to official territorial status for Washington in 1853. By 1900, 2,514 blacks lived in Washington, ten of them inVancouver ? an increase of only seven since i860. Across the river, although Oregon's total black population grew smaller between 1890 and 1900, the number living inPortland increased by 26 percent to 775, primar ilybecause of the railroad and steamship connections to the region and national immigration trends.3 Company B was the first unit from one of the army's four African American regiments to serve as part of the garrison of soldiers atVancouver Barracks. Still,we seem to know more about the Undine ? the ferry that brought the soldiers toVancouver ? than the soldiers themselves. Company B represented the apex of a long and distinguished legacy of black military service in theUnited States. Although soldiers ofAfrican American ancestry fought inmost earlyU.S. conflicts, including theAmerican Revolution, the Civil War brought approximately 180,000 black men into theUnion Army. By war's end, one-third of them had lost their lives.4 Following thewar, the War Department established sixblack regiments, including two cavalry units (the Ninth andTenth) and fourinfantry units (theThirty-eighth, Thirty ninth, Fortieth, and Forty-first). In 1869, the infantry regiments reorganized into two ? the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth.5 THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR motivated the U.S. Army to refocuson western conflictswith American Indians, which theydid in earnest, recording 943 engagements from 1865 to 1898. Contrary to the conventional nature of Civil War battles, themajority of these actions were smaller, guerilla warfare skirmishes involving cavalry regiments, including theNinth and theTenth. The black infantry units had a very different experience from the white units, performing mundane activities such as clearing sagebrush, escorting supply trains, stringing telegraph wire, and building roads. Labor for such work was needed throughout theWest, and the army further divided the Twenty-fourth Infantry in 1880, dispersing companies to various posts. By themid-i890s, after almost thirty years of frontier service in the remote Southwest, the regiment requested a...

African-American Pioneers in Veterinary Education

African-American Pioneers in Veterinary Education