Radicalism at the Crossroads: African American Women Activists in the Cold War by Dayo F. Gore

This article reinterprets Asian industrialization during the Cold War through the lens of a forgotten commodity: the South Korean wig. Wigs were critical to Asia’s “miraculous” economic growth—a US$1 billion industry in 1970, as well as the number two export in South Korea and number four in Hong Kong at the height of export-oriented industrialization. The article makes a methodological argument, suggesting that we see industrialization differently when we “follow” a commodity transnationally—from the heads of rural South Koreans to the hands of Seoul factory workers to the shoulder bags of Korean American peddlers to the heads of African American women—and when we integrate bottom-up and top-down views of the commodity’s “life.” Only by taking this global perspective can we see how U.S. imperialism shaped the ways people and things moved across borders and oceans and how Cold War commodities were haunted by the lives of the people who touched them.

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The Relationship Between the “Invisibility” of African American Women in the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s and Their Portrayal in Modern Film

Journal of Black Studies ◽

10.1177/0021934717696758 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 48 (4) ◽

pp. 331-354 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Martha Lott

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Civil Rights ◽

African American Women ◽

Civil Rights Movement ◽

Women Activists ◽

Historical Events ◽

American Women ◽

The 1950S ◽

Women's Role

This research argues that the representation of African American women in modern civil rights film is a result of the “invisibility” that they faced during the civil rights movement in America during the 1950s and 1960s. To make its argument, this article contends that the media’s scant but negative coverage of women activists along with male leaders, such as Malcolm X’s attitude toward African American women during the period of the movement, is the reason why ultimately African American women activists received lack of recognition for their involvement in the movement. This work also argues that the lack of recognition for these women is evident in modern civil rights film and they negatively portray African American women’s role during the movement. This is shown by examining two films— Selma and The Help. This work also debates whether using film as a historical source is correct. This work touches upon the ongoing stereotypical role of “Mammy” in films such as The Help and argues that overall, by studying various arguments, and as historian Peniel Joseph believes, that many prestigious movies take dramatic license with historical events, arguing that films are not scholarly books and people should not learn about historical events through films.

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Singing Smoothly

10.1093/oso/9780190299590.003.0002 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Philip M. Gentry

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Cold War ◽

African American Women ◽

Musical Style ◽

American Women ◽

American Press ◽

Historical Moment

The early R&B vocal group the Orioles are often credited with launching the musical style later known as doo-wop, especially with their 1949 hit “It’s Too Soon to Know” and their last charting number, “Crying in the Chapel” (1953). Their smooth romantic ballads became some of the first crossover hits of the postwar era, and were an alternative to more aggressive masculinities emerging out of the jump blues. This chapter illustrates this choreography of gender through live stage shows, recordings, interviews, and period reviews in the African American press. The short-lived periodical Tan Confessions adds particular nuance, featuring interviews with stars like Sonny Til alongside housewares advertisements targeted at African American women. This masculinity should be understood as a strategy linked with Cold War discourses of consensus and consumption, and the anxieties over masculinity expressed in Franklin Frasier’s Black Bourgeoisie in the historical moment of postwar desegregation.

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