American Struggle Research Articles

Tradition Is a Trap

Native Americans seem to be implicated in a disproportionate share of trademark and branding disputes. From the more obvious fight over the cancellation of the disparaging trademark previously used by the D.C. football team to more “every day” trademark registration disputes questioning whether the use of trademark containing the name of a tribe refers simply to a geographic location or “falsely suggests a connection” with the tribe. For example, using “Shinnecock” as a trademark on cigarettes was prohibited for falsely suggesting a connection to the Shinnecock tribe, because Native Americans have a historical affiliation with tobacco products; however, a car company can sell “Jeep Cherokees” because no reasonable consumer would make the false connection between the tribe and cars. This problem of “frozen” minority representations in trademark law is not limited to only Native Americans as prior scholars have explored how trademark law’s implicit focus on the white male consumer gaze has perpetuated stereotypical ideas and images of African Americans and Asian Americans, for example, at various points in United States history. This Article adds to that scholarship by exploring the history of Native Americans in American marketing and trademark law to connect that history to modern cases brought by Native Americans seeking to protect their cultural identity. The struggles of Native Americans to fight racist trademarks and marketing imagery illustrates how trademark law’s reliance on stereotypes is not simply a glitch in the system caused by the speed at which consumer perceptions change. Instead, the entire trademark system is built on a Eurocentric framework with ideas of “tradition” and “authenticity” at its foundation. A trademark system that prioritizes tradition necessarily privileges those in the majority, those in power. Conversely, it can trap minority groups in their disadvantaged “traditional” positions. Because of this trap built into trademark law, Native Americans likely cannot seek redress for trademark-related harms through the courts and instead should consider redirecting their resources to public relations and community organizing efforts.

“(Not)Belongingness” and “(Not)Betweenness” as being “Other” in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

This paper focuses on diaspora-related issues in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake (2003). Furthermore, the paper analyses the characters’ understating of identity and how it reflects through the characters’ ‘(not)belonging’ and a conflict of ‘(not)betweenness.’ This research seeks an answer to the questions: 1. What is the role of culture and memory in Indian American life? And 2. How do Indian Americans struggle for cultural, diasporic, and personal names as an identity? In The Namesake, the characters’ struggles are examined through the works of Bhabha (1994), Chambers and Herbert (2015), and Gowricharn (2022). A textual analysis of this novel is significant to understand diasporic relations with the ‘culture,’ ‘memory,’ ‘dual identity’ and the idea of ‘home’ from the context of twenty-first-century. To conclude, two generations’ stories from India to America bring a sense of ‘(non)belongings’ and ‘(non)betweenness’ as being “other.”

Jazz music: From black pride to political consciousness to social change in the United States

African Americans have been marginalised, discriminated against, and excluded from American society for centuries. First as slaves, but later when they gained emancipation, they remained relegated, differentiated, and discounted, in a range of areas, including in the political and economic spheres. Music has been a means to promote their greater inclusion in American society, drawing together and uniting all Americans through its power. While there have been links drawn between music and the African American struggle for equality, there has not been sufficient focus on the pivotal role that specifically jazz music has played in this regard. Jazz particularly has been a vehicle for promoting Black pride, political consciousness, and social change. This article argues that jazz has had a major effect on African American culture, society, and experience. Analysing the works of legendary jazz musicians James Brown, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, and The Temptations, this article shows that jazz is not only as a catalyst for, but a driving force in, the fight for political freedom, as well as for economic empowerment, which is arguably still ongoing today.

Not Your Model Minority

This roundtable offers a conversational case study of how a film retrospective on Asian American documentary filmmaker, producer, and activist Renee Tajima-Peña turned into a series of community care and coalition-building events, co-curated by precariously employed faculty at San José State University, California. The curators behind Not Your Model Minority: The Art and Activism of Renee Tajima-Peña had envisioned the retrospective as a way of showcasing Tajima-Pena’s hidden legacy, particularly the way in which her archival work in documentary practice connects the struggles of Asian Americans with African Americans and Latinx communities, essentially curating solidarity among aggrieved communities. Moved by the turn of events brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and the spike in anti-Asian violence unleashed by it, the curators remade the film retrospective into a deeply needed time-space for feminist-oriented communal sharing and caring, fostering acts of intersectional intimacy and promiscuous care.

The Future of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Embattled Environments: The Challenge to Educators and Providers Serving a Growingly More Diverse Geriatric Population and How to Overcome that Challenge

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is the organizational approach to ensure fair treatment and welcomed participation of all groups. We can trace the roots of DEI back to the 1906’s civil rights movement and the African American struggle. As the movement evolved, it encompassed other groups vulnerable to discrimination. These groups include people of different ages, races, religions, ethnicities, different physical abilities, neurodiversity, socioeconomic means, genders, and sexual orientations.DEI is an important aspect of our healthcare institutions in the way of recruitment, admission, hiring, promotions, and practices. DEI is now under fire in several states. This has implications for the quality of training, effectiveness, and delivery of healthcare to all diverse populations. Our geriatric populations have grown more diverse by way of an aging immigrant population entering the healthcare system, as well as our own native-born needing more access to healthcare as they've aged. With these populations in mind, the need to continue creating and nurturing a diverse provider culture that is attuned to the complex needs of this growingly more diverse aging population is imperative.At the time of this writing, there have been 30 bills that seek to eliminate DEI from public institutions. Texas has passed Senate Bill 17 which bans diversity programs in public universities. The state of Florida teetered on effectively banning AP Psychology courses as part of the governor's “Stop W.O.K.E Act.” This is an effort to stop teachings about sexual and gender identity topics. Florida has also been in the news for school history curriculum proposals that would teach how some blacks benefitted from slavery. Just as states are eliminating once-protected aspects of reproductive rights and generating talk of reproductive bans on a Federal level, DEI is following this course. This country may methodically eliminate DEI at its peril. We must examine the effects this might have on our academic and clinical practices and our endeavor to deliver thoughtful inclusive health care to our aging population.

W.E.B. Du Bois' Autobiographical Legacy: Impact on African American Literature and Civil Rights

This research paper explores the autobiographical legacy of William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, commonly known as W.E.B. Du Bois, and its profound influence on African American literature and the Civil Rights Movement. Du Bois, a prominent African American scholar, writer, and civil rights activist, penned a series of autobiographical works that not only documented his own life experiences but also played a pivotal role in shaping the narrative of the African American struggle for civil rights and equality. This paper examines Du Bois' autobiographical writings, including "The Souls of Black Folk," "Dusk of Dawn," and "The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois," and their impact on the broader African American literary tradition and the Civil Rights Movement of the 20th century. By analyzing Du Bois' life and his written accounts, this paper illustrates how his autobiographical legacy contributed to the intellectual and social fabric of African American history.

The Voting Rights Act beyond the Headlines

Abstract: This article introduces readers to the ongoing African American struggle for full voting rights from Reconstruction to the present. It explains some of the significant ways white supremacists (mis)used the legal and political system, along with violence and economic terrorism, to suppress the Black vote. The essay gives particular attention to the collective work of African Americans to secure voting rights during the modern Civil Rights Movement, with a focus on the organizing work of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), mentored by Ella Baker. While many people give well-known leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Lyndon Johnson credit for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, SNCC workers immersed themselves in communities for bottom-up organizing to demand the vote and make it impossible for the country to continue to ignore the violent suppression of Black rights. The article concludes with contemporary voting rights challenges.

The Struggle of African Americans against Racial Stereotypes Portrayed in Angie Thomas’s the Hate U Give (2017)

The Struggle of African Americans against Racial Stereotypes Portrayed in Angie Thomas’s the Hate U Give (2017)

The Role of Education in the Struggle for Native American Sovereignty

This article explores the enduring struggle of Native Americans to preserve their land, culture, and sovereigntyin the face of European colonization and U.S. expansion. The Native American population, estimated between five and 18million prior to 1492, was drastically reduced to 250,000 by the early 20th century due to colonization’s harsh realities.Education emerged as a critical battleground for preserving tribal identity, as the U.S. imposed its system to erase nativecultures. Native American children were coerced into feeling ashamed of their heritage, all while the nation denied themequal opportunities. Educational autonomy is intrinsically linked to the broader fight for Native American sovereignty,enabling tribal nations to wield political and economic power as sovereign entities within the U.S. boundaries. Thenarrative covers the encroachment and division policies of the Reconstruction Era, exemplified by the Homestead Act andthe Dawes Act, which led to the loss of tribal land and imposition of Western culture. It also delves into the establishmentof off-reservation boarding schools, such as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which sought to assimilate NativeAmerican children through familial separation and a curriculum that suppressed cultural identity. This historical overviewreflects the hurdles overcome and the remaining obstacles in Native Americans’ quest for educational autonomy and self-determination, ultimately serving as a testament to their enduring resilience and determination in the face of centuries ofadversity

<i>And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle</i>, by Jon Meacham

<i>And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle</i>, by Jon Meacham

‘An inferior technician’? African American signallers in the First World War

Abstract In the literature on the struggles of African Americans during the First World War, there has been a failure to examine the experiences of the 325th Field Signal Battalion, the first Black signal unit in the U.S. Army. Drawing upon a range of archival sources, unpublished letters, official documents and newspapers, this article assesses the experiences of the battalion’s Black officers and men before, during and after the war, arguing that they defied not only traditional notions of specialism within the army, threatening to destabilize unambiguous racial boundaries by challenging what had long been viewed as an intrinsically white soldiers’ sphere of influence, but also some of the fundamental principles underpinning Jim Crow ideology. In so doing, they made an important, albeit subtle, contribution to the ‘long civil rights movement’.

A pro-American perspective on the American Revolution: Johann Heinrich Ramberg’s (1763–1840) adaptations of illustrations by Daniel Chodowiecki

The Allgemeines Historisches Taschenbuch, oder Abriss der merkwürdigsten neuen Welt-Begebenheiten (General Historical Pocketbook, or Outline of the most remarkable new world events), published in Berlin in 1784 and supported by the Academy of Arts, contained one of the most important contemporary accounts of the North American Revolution, titled Geschichte der Revolution von Nord-Amerika (History of the North American Revolution) by Matthias Christian Sprengel, professor at Göttingen University. It further contained influential illustrations, among them twelve engravings designed by Academy member Daniel Chodowiecki, each depicting a key motif from the American struggle for independence and its outcome. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), an original copy of the pocket book with the Geschichte der Revolution has been preserved, and it is unique in that eleven drawings by Johann Heinrich Ramberg are glued in in addition to the original plates. Ramberg of Hanover was to follow Chodowiecki as the most prolific artist in German book illustration. Several of the drawings are dated 1786 or 1787, when the young Ramberg was a fellow at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, studying under the American history painter Benjamin West. These drawings are examined and published in their entirety here for the first time. An article published in Amerikastudien in 1978 first mentioned the drawings in the Metropolitan Museum and their obvious connection to the Chodowiecki prints, stating they posed a “puzzling iconographic problem” because the German artist in London appeared to change the viewpoint in at least one case. This article follows up on Jantz’s observation. It examines how Chodowiecki’s designs all show the perspective of the British or share a “neutral” outsider perspective. I argue that in nearly all cases, Ramberg moves the observer closer to the action, takes on the perspective of the Americans or one sympathetic to them, shows more emotion and movement than Chodowiecki, and thus invites an emotional reaction from the viewer. The question of whether Ramberg planned publication, though, remains unanswered.

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham (review)

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham (review)

The forgotten African American innovators of educational technology: stories of education, technology, and civil rights

ABSTRACT The history of educational technology is replete with stories of mostly White men who have conducted some of the leading innovations in the field. The stories of educational technologists from minority backgrounds have largely gone untold, perhaps giving the false impression that such individuals were not involved in this field. This article recounts the stories of several leading African American innovators. These individuals did cutting-edge work and worked with well-known researchers from the 1960s to the present day, but their work has largely gone unnoticed by educational technology researchers and developers. These narratives provoke us to reconsider the meaning, scope, and purpose of educational technology as they collectively describe how the desire of a few individuals to use technology to educate and empower the underserved was intertwined with the African American struggle for civil rights.

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham

Reviewed by: And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham Jon Diefenthaler And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle. By Jon Meacham. New York: Random House, 2022. 676 pp. Do we need another book on Abraham Lincoln? Among the multitude of others, what makes And There Was Light stand out is Jon Meacham's remarkable effort to let America's sixteenth President provide an illuminating perspective on a nation that is currently as deeply divided and struggling to survive as a democracy as it was before and during the Civil War. As helpful as this book may be for any American citizen to read, I am motivated to review it for this church-related journal because I believe the historical insights this noted author provides are potentially useful to Lutheran clergy and other ecclesiastical leaders seeking to navigate these same troubled waters and to address the socio-political divisions that continue to wash into their congregations and church bodies. Aptly subtitled "Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle," Meacham's book covers most of the bases one would expect to find in a comprehensive biography, including Lincoln's family of origin, his hardscrabble upbringing, his first love Ann Rutledge, his turbulent marriage to Mary Todd and the loss of two of their progeny, his elections to office, as well as his anguished presidency and subsequent assassination. But in most every chapter on Lincoln's life, Meacham chooses to give us a measure of insight into the role religion played as the Illinois rail splitter sought to deal with the towering and divisive problem of slavery. At work in Lincoln's mind, in Meacham's estimation, were history, reason, and faith. For him, the Constitution, which viewed slaves as the property of their owners, took a back seat in America's history to the Declaration of Independence, which unequivocally stated that "all men are created equal." In contrast to historians who have stated that Lincoln's opposition to slavery evolved, Meacham provides ample evidence to substantiate the president's later [End Page 188] conscience-grounded claim that it was always in his nature to believe that "if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." As Meacham sees it, what evolved was Lincoln's continuous search for a reasonable political solution to the problem. While African colonization of slaves piqued his interest, this proposal quickly proved to be less than feasible. Recognizing that various legislative compromises would only extend the Southern slave empire, he felt compelled to oppose them. The political necessity of gaining the support of Whites in order to outlaw slavery prompted his willingness to concede that Blacks were an inferior breed. The "popular sovereignty" solution advocated by Stephen Douglas in his campaigns for office only seemed to fan the flames of self-interest and secession. What Meacham in fact demonstrates is that as Lincoln's reliance on reason waned and as "war came," his faith in God took on a much greater role. According to Meacham, Lincoln's "creed was of his own making—and it was always evolving with enormous consequences for the nation he led and for the nation he left behind" (xxxv). His piety included regular reading of the King James Bible and, at his most critical hours, getting on his knees to pray to God. At the same time, his reading of Thomas Paine's Age of Reason ("my own mind is my own church") made him a "doubting Thomas" among believers, and for this reason, he never became the member of a Christian congregation. Lincoln found some of the Evangelical Protestant beliefs featured by the Second Great Awakening, such as the divinity of Jesus, too difficult to embrace. Instead, he favored the brand of theology set forth by the New England Transcendentalists. Theodore Parker in particular helped him focus on Nature's God and to believe that the universe was inherently moral, and that its history arced in the direction of justice. Nevertheless, Meacham reveals elements of Lincoln's religion that coincide with those of the Christian faith. For one thing, he recognized the pervasiveness of human depravity. Persistent awareness of his own shortcomings prevented any consideration...

Rediscovering Reconstruction in the Urban South: Achievements and New Opportunities

In the decades following Eric Foner’s Reconstruction: An Unfinished Revolution, which synthesized revisions to the Lost Cause narrative of Dunning school, scholars have expanded the scope of Reconstruction studies and debated its emancipatory potential. Among these new avenues of inquiry, Southern cities have undergone a quiet renaissance as settings for studying the period’s larger themes, particularly the South’s economic recovery and the African American struggle for freedom and equality. However, these achievements have come without close engagement with the work of urbanists who theorize the city as an autonomous force in human history. By making cities subjects, as opposed to settings, historians can gain new insights into how the process of Reconstruction unfolded in the postwar South. This essay begins by exploring the different worlds of urban and Civil War era historiography. It then considers how historians of Reconstruction have studied cities and how they can move the field forward by considering the city as an agent of change.

Review: Defend the Sacred: Native American Religious Freedom Beyond the First Amendment, by Michael D. McNally

Book Review| May 01 2023 Review: Defend the Sacred: Native American Religious Freedom Beyond the First Amendment, by Michael D. McNally Defend the Sacred: Native American Religious Freedom Beyond the First Amendment. By Michael D. McNally. Princeton University Press, 2020. 400 pages. $115.00 hardcover; $27.95 softcover; ebook available. Tarryl Janik Tarryl Janik University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nova Religio (2023) 26 (4): 130–132. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2023.26.4.130 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Tarryl Janik; Review: Defend the Sacred: Native American Religious Freedom Beyond the First Amendment, by Michael D. McNally. Nova Religio 1 May 2023; 26 (4): 130–132. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2023.26.4.130 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentNova Religio Search This important book engages the ongoing struggle of Native Americans to protect the sacred, their land, and treaty rights. Michael McNally recognizes how the term religion as a western category has failed Native Americans through law by not fully interpreting the complexities of Indigenous religions. Nevertheless, he argues that even though religion is a problematic term, it remains useful, especially if “imagined capaciously as an Indigenous collective right keyed to the collective nation-to-nation relationship [that] can carry the legal teeth of religious freedom” (xv). What McNally proposes in his latest book on American Indigenous religions is an integrative approach wherein Native American religious claims connect with elements of federal Indian law, while Indigenous rights operate within international human rights law. He argues that not only does the language of religion still have value for Native American religious claims in law, but that sovereignty, religion, and peoplehood should be seen as... You do not currently have access to this content.

(Mis)Trust and Pragmatism as Grounded Normativity

(Mis)Trust and Pragmatism as Grounded Normativity

Book Review: The Movement: The African American Struggle for Civil Rights by Thomas Holt

Book Review: <i>The Movement: The African American Struggle for Civil Rights</i> by Thomas Holt

The Diffusion of Malcolm X as a Political Symbol Among Turkish Islamists and the Rise of the AK Party, 1999-2019

The Diffusion of Malcolm X as a Political Symbol Among Turkish Islamists and the Rise of the AK Party, 1999-2019 Jeffrey Bishku-Aykul (bio) "A pro-government columnist, Hilal Kaplan, a Bogazici graduate who wears a hijab, compared religious conservatives' struggle to that of Malcolm X and Black Americans and warned in an opinion piece that the 'privileged' secularists who ruled the country for decades would fight back."1 1. Introduction In early 2021, protests broke out at Boğaziçi University, where President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had recently appointed an unpopular rector, pitting the state against a more socially liberal student body and faculty. The subsequent fallout became a flashpoint of controversy in national politics, spilling far beyond the confines of campus life and into the pages of The New York Times. To casual readers of this coverage, the above comparison of Turkish religious conservatives to Malcolm X (1925-1965) may have seemed [End Page 65] arbitrary. This article suggests, however, that it aligns with a decades-long tradition of Turkish Islamists employing Malcolm X's image and words in service of their political aims. There are some likely reasons for Turkish Islamist affinity to Malcolm X. As a U.S.-born convert to Islam well before 9/11, the War on Terror, and immigration liberalization, the activist was once one of most public Muslim faces in America. He presented Islam as a solution to American racism, internationalizing the Black American struggle through his travels and speeches. His travels linked Harlem to Cairo, and Mecca to Chicago, forging an ideological bond between Black Americans, the Islamic world, and anti-colonial movements for independence. A legacy of this political activity has been his appeal to Muslims worldwide. However, as the political fortunes of Turkish Islamists have improved, Malcolm X's once subversive image has become a symbol in service of state power. This article provides a theoretical framework for understanding this seemingly contradictory phenomenon. Social movement theory describes the spread of Malcolm X as a symbol, detailing the key role Turkish Islamist columnists play in this process. A subsequent methodological overview and discourse analysis classify references to the Black activist among Turkish Islamist columnists, who 1) assign credibility and significance to his Muslim identity, 2) refer to him to reaffirm negative beliefs about America, and 3) frame his struggles and those of Black Americans as analogous to their own. Finally, this work discusses how Malcolm X has been reinterpreted by contemporary Turkish Islamist newspaper columnists operating during a period of increasingly powerful AK Party (AKP) rule. This study concerns the period April 1999-May 2019, a timeframe that corresponds roughly with the AKP's meteoric rise. In April 1999, two years before the AKP was established, the man who would later become its most prominent figure, Erdoğan, was forced by the state to step down as mayor of Istanbul and serve time in prison for reciting a poem with religious imagery. This key event arguably marked a subversive high point in the career of a politician who would come to be accused of authoritarian tendencies. Two decades later, under Erdoğan, the AKP had achieved such a level of political hegemony that its loss in the 2019 Istanbul race for mayor came as a surprise to many. Accordingly, although it remains to be seen whether future histories will point to this seismic election upset as the beginning of the AKP decline, the period April 1999-May 2019 gives insight into a period of rising political fortunes and the impact this had on Turkish Islamist discourse about Malcolm X. [End Page 66] 2. Theoretical Framework: Turkish Islamist Columnists as a "Channel of Diffusion" Donatella della Porta and Sidney Tarrow define diffusion as "the spread of movement ideas, practices, and frames from one country to another," adding that actors "in one country or region adopt or adapt the organizational forms, collective action frames, or targets of those in other countries or regions."2 Furthermore, Doug McAdam and Dieter Rucht write that diffusion involves an "emitter or transmitter," an "adopter," an "item that is diffused," and a "channel of diffusion that may consist of persons or media that link the...