A Black Intellectual's Odyssey

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Kilson
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Company Town ◽  
Political Views ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Students ◽  
White Institution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire Career ◽  
Cornel West ◽  
Lincoln University

In 1969, Martin Kilson became the first tenured African American professor at Harvard University, where he taught African and African American politics for over thirty years. In A Black Intellectual's Odyssey, Kilson takes readers on a fascinating journey from his upbringing in the small Pennsylvania milltown of Ambler to his experiences attending Lincoln University—the country's oldest HBCU—to pursuing graduate study at Harvard before spending his entire career there as a faculty member. This is as much a story of his travels from the racist margins of twentieth-century America to one of the nation's most prestigious institutions as it is a portrait of the places that shaped him. He gives a sweeping sociological tour of Ambler as a multiethnic, working-class company town while sketching the social, economic, and racial elements that marked everyday life. From narrating the area's history of persistent racism and the racial politics in the integrated schools to describing the Black church's role in buttressing the town's small Black community, Kilson vividly renders his experience of northern small-town life during the 1930s and 1940s. At Lincoln University, Kilson's liberal political views coalesced as he became active in the local NAACP chapter. While at Lincoln and during his graduate work at Harvard, Kilson observed how class, political, and racial dynamics influenced his peers' political engagement, diverse career paths, and relationships with white people. As a young professor, Kilson made a point of assisting Harvard's African American students in adapting to life at a white institution. Throughout his career, Kilson engaged in pioneering scholarship while mentoring countless students. A Black Intellectual's Odyssey features contributions from three of his students: a foreword by Cornel West and an afterword by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 3-10
Author(s):  
Elaine Allen Lechtreck
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Southern States ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Martin Luther King

The introduction includes Bible verses cited by ministers to defend segregation and verses to oppose segregation. There are slices of the history of the United States, the Civil Rights Movement, and African American history. The southern states, where white ministers confronted segregation, are identified. The term “minister” is explained as well as the variety of labels given these ministers ranging from “Liberal,” Progressive,” “Neo-Orthodox,” “Evangelical Liberal,” “open conservative,” ‘Last Hurrah of the Social Gospel Movement” to “Trouble Maker,” “Traitor, “ “Atheist,” “Communist,” “N_____ Lover.” Rachel Henderlite, the only woman minister mentioned in the book, is identified. Synopses of the book’s seven chapters are included. Comments by historians David Chappell, Charles Reagan Wilson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ernest Campbell, and Thomas Pettigrew are cited.

Afrocentric Thought in Adult Education

2020 ◽  
pp. 175-198
Author(s):  
Parris J. Baker
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Students Of Color ◽  
African American Students ◽  
Curriculum Planning ◽  
Adult Educators ◽  
American Education ◽  
Student Centered ◽  
American Students ◽  
History Of ◽  
Afrocentric Paradigm

The failure of the American education system to teach African American students has been well chronicled. This chapter draws attention to the history of Eurocentric pedagogy and its ineffectiveness to educate African American students. The principles of Afrocentricity are presented as a plausible way to counter ineffective, hegemonic, and ethnocentric curriculum planning for all students, with particular emphasis on students of color. Differentiated instruction offers adult educators a way to vary instruction and integrate an Afrocentric paradigm and content into student-centered curricula. This chapter concludes with two Afrocentric application activities.

Image Versus Text in PowerPoint Lectures: Who Does It Benefit?

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Barrick ◽  
Dana Davis ◽  
Dana Winkler
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
African American ◽  
Student Satisfaction ◽  
Response Rate ◽  
Underrepresented Students ◽  
Public University ◽  
Retention Rates ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Students ◽  
Institutional Retention

Microsoft PowerPoint has become routine in higher education lectures, yet there is very little research on the effectiveness of text in slides, which is primarily what is used. The current study assessed student satisfaction with images versus text slides in PowerPoint lectures across several classes of one professor in the social work department at a large public university. The survey was sent to 123 BSW students who were instructed by the researcher with PowerPoint lectures that involved primarily images versus text. Seventy-eight students completed the survey for a response rate of 63%. Results indicated that students overwhelmingly reported that images in PowerPoint lectures enhanced their learning. However, further analyses indicated that being African American is negatively associated with enhancing their learning using images. This is important because of the increase in African American students enrolling in college and low institutional retention rates of underrepresented students.

The Roman Garden

1950 ◽  
Vol 19 (57) ◽  
pp. 97-105
Author(s):  
James Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Private Life ◽  
First Century ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Political Views ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Social Habits ◽  
Almost All

Aman's character is judged not merely by his public services and his political views but also by his private life and individual interests. Similarly the history of a nation is to be read not only in its military exploits, its constitutional experiments, its art and literature, but also in the social habits and predominant interests of its citizens. Just as a garden mirrors the character of its owner, so the gardens of a nation reflect the character and the degree of advancement of the State. It is no coincidence that the popular garden of the Roman Republic was the simple kitchen garden, while under the Empire pretentious landscape gardens were the vogue. The vitalizing energy of the Republic found an outlet in the productive vegetable plot: the elaborate but sterile gardens of the Empire were symbolic of incipient decay.Until the first century b.c. almost all Roman gardens were cottage gardens. Their plan and culture were governed solely by practical needs. From them the mistress of the house used to replenish her larder and medicine-chest and adorn the family shrine with flowers. Pliny the Elder reminds the luxury-seeking populace of a later date that in the past at Rome a garden was the poor man's estate: it was the only market he had from which to provide himself with food. The prime function of a garden was to make its owner self-sufficient. This self-sufficiency was more easy of attainment in ancient Italy than in more northerly countries, for the diet of the Romans consisted, for the most part, of salads.

scholarly journals African American Student Persistence at a Predominantly White Institution

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Bourke ◽  
Nathaniel Bray
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Predominantly White ◽  
African American Students ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
African American Student ◽  
State University ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Predominantly White Institution ◽  
American Students ◽  
White Institution

Persistence in college among African American students continues to remain low compared to persistence among White students. Often, the focus in examining this issue has been on institution-wide retention efforts, which can ignore socio-cultural elements that can influence the decisions of individual students to persist at an institution; however, persistence may rely on a combination of institutional factors and socio-cultural elements. The purpose of this article is to present findings from a research project that highlight institutional factors and socio-cultural elements that influence the persistence of African American students at a predominantly White institution. The findings from focus groups with African American students suggest that they persist despite a “cold” campus climate and ongoing experiences with racism and prejudice at Southern State University [pseudonym].

George Washington Williams’s Stern Duty of History

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ira Dworkin
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African American Students ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
George Washington ◽  
Hampton Institute ◽  
Untimely Death ◽  
Transatlantic Slave Trade ◽  
American Interest ◽  
American Students ◽  
History Of

This chapter begins at Hampton Institute in 1889 where Williams traveled after meeting in Belgium with King Leopold II. Williams, whose interest in the Congo predates the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference, went to Hampton to enlist African American students to travel with him to Africa, which framed his Congo trip within a tradition of ongoing African American interest in Africa. Williams’s initial optimism for the Congo quickly soured, and he wrote a series of open letters--to Leopold, U.S. President Benjamin Harrison, and railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington--that inspired opposition to Leopold’s regime that continued well after Williams’s untimely death in 1891. An examination of Williams’s struggles to develop and define a relationship to the Belgian empire against the backdrop of the history of the transatlantic slave trade reveals an African American connection to Africa that is grounded in a global political landscape of emancipation and anti-imperialism.

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