Liberalizing the Campground

Heading Out ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence Young
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Working Class ◽  
National Parks ◽  
National Park ◽  
Summer Camps ◽  
Boy Scouts ◽  
Southern States ◽  
Camp Fire Girls

This chapter looks at how the inexpensive automobile extended camping to the mass of middle-and working-class Americans. During the 1920s, some African Americans, like their white counterparts, had grown wealthier and embraced a variety of short and extended recreations, including such nature-based activities as relaxing at the beach, swimming, picnicking, fishing, hiking, participating in the Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls, enrolling at summer camps, and family camping. However, when several new national parks opened in southern states during the 1930s, the campgrounds were racially segregated. For one African American, William J. Trent, Jr., this was unacceptable, and he waged a long and often lonely campaign to officially desegregate all national park campgrounds.

Black Philanthropy and National Parks: Giving Green to Give Black

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aby Sene-Harper ◽  
Myron Floyd ◽  
Akiebia Hicks
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Focus Group ◽  
National Parks ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Meaningful Relationships ◽  
Giving Circles ◽  
The U.S

Philanthropic partners have always played a critical role in the management and maintenance of national parks in the U.S. Cultivating strong relationships with the communities of color, particularly African Americans, has been a major challenge for the National Park Service (NPS). As ethnic populations increase in share of the U.S. total population, the lack of diversity in NPS partnerships will be increasingly problematic for national parks funding and stewardship. Building philanthropic partnerships with African American audiences will be critical to the long-term sustainability of the NPS. While philanthropy is present and strong in the Black community, further research is needed to ascertain how the NPS can inspire and sustain philanthropic actions among Black donors in support of national parks. This paper presents an overview of the literature on Black philanthropy and the findings from focus group interviews to understand how African Americans perceive their philanthropy and the ways they connect their giving to national parks. The focus group interviews occurred between February and June 2018 in Raleigh, NC; Atlanta, GA; Charlotte, NC; and Washington, DC. Participants included mostly African American donors who were actively involved in community foundations, philanthropic associations, and giving circles. The study found that Black philanthropy is embedded in the community life; measured not only in money, but also in time and talent; and, driven by race and humanity. Participants also noted that a general lack of awareness as an important reason why they had not considered giving in support of national parks in the past. They suggested that making more visible the Black history of national parks would likely increase African American donors’ interests and stewardship. We suggest the NPS broaden its lens in forming strategies for connecting to Black donors (and audiences in general). Findings in this report present unique opportunities for the NPS to cultivate enduring and meaningful relationships with African American communities in support of national parks. Specifically, the NPS should leverage Black philanthropy to build partnerships, recognize the importance of social empowerment, expand cultural memory as part of the NPS visitor experience, and build on the concept of giving circles.

Kimberley L. Phillips, Alabama North: African-American Migrants, Community, and Working-Class Activism in Cleveland, 1915–45. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1999. xv + 334 pp. $59.95 cloth.

2001 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 246-248
Author(s):  
Peter Gottlieb
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Working Class ◽  
North African ◽  
University Of Illinois ◽  
Black Migration ◽  
Industrial City ◽  
And Gender ◽  
North And South ◽  
Landmark Study

Kimberley Phillips adds a fine study of African-Americans' northward migration, community development, and working-class formation to a series of similar works published in the 1980s and 1990s. Alabama North opens new reaches of African-Americans' early twentieth century experience in both North and South, but especially in Cleveland, a major industrial city and significant destination for Southern black migrants. We have known most about the city's African-American community at this time from the landmark study of ghetto development by Ken Kusmer, published in 1976. Like the more recent field of research which has examined black migration and migrants in Northern industrial cities, Phillips focuses her study not on the spatial and social aspects of African-Americans' increasingly segregated community but on the racial, class, and gender dynamics that produced a particular form of community in Cleveland.

The Black Press and a Mass Black Readership

2020 ◽  
pp. 15-44
Author(s):  
Kim T. Gallon
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Mass Movement ◽  
Black Press ◽  
Northern Cities ◽  
Black Life

This chapter examines the mass movement of southern African Americans to Northern cities in the first half of the twentieth century and shows how it dramatically altered the Black Press. After 1920, black newspaper editors covered more news that they believed would appeal to working-class African Americans. In charting the development of the early-twentieth-century Black Press, chapter 1 presents a comparative analysis of five different newspapers: The Amsterdam News, The Baltimore Afro-American, The Chicago Defender, The Philadelphia Tribune, and the Pittsburgh Courier. These five newspapers demonstrate how the Black Press fostered and imagined an African American readership’s interest in sexuality through its sensational coverage of the variegations of black life throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

Ghetto Formation and Armed Resistance in East St. Louis, Illinois

2007 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 435-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
MALCOLM McLAUGHLIN
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Urban Community ◽  
Race Riot ◽  
Black Migration ◽  
Armed Resistance ◽  
The City ◽  
Self Defence

This article explores African American armed resistance during the 1917 East St. Louis race riot in the context of black migration and ghetto formation. In particular it considers the significance of the development of the black urban community, composed of an emerging working class and a dynamic, militant and increasingly influential middle class. It was that community which came under attack by white mobs in 1917, and this work illuminates the infrastructure of resistance in the city, showing how African Americans drew upon the resources of the nascent ghetto and older traditions of self-defence to protect their homes and families.

Reform versus Reality in the Progressive Era Texas Prison

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theresa R. Jach
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
Prison Population ◽  
Prison System ◽  
Profit Motive ◽  
Labor Control ◽  
Southern States ◽  
Plantation Labor ◽  
Farm System

The state of Texas' determined effort to keep African-Americans performing plantation labor was at the heart of its prison farm system, from Reconstruction through the 1920s. State and penitentiary officials followed a practice of racialized labor control, demanding that African-American convicts perform plantation gang labor, not only to make the prison system profitable but also keep them involved in extractive agriculture. As the prison population grew, so did the abuse of convicts. The story of Texas’ penitentiary system shows the continuing tie between African-Americans, plantation labor, and racism in Texas, as well as other southern states. The sprawling farm system that developed in Texas made it unique in the South. When Progressive Era reformers confronted abuses in the Texas prison system, they had to contend with an overwhelming profit motive that made reform difficult, and warped reform measures they managed to push through the legislature. Among the initial goals of Texas prison reformers were an end to convict leasing and a ban on the use of the whip as punishment. The agenda of reformers collided with the goals of the Texas prison system, with unexpected results. Looking at reform measures after they passed the legislature illustrates how prison managers tried to circumvent regulations that hindered profitability.

Regionalism, Social Class, and Elite Perceptions of Working-Class Foodways during the Era of the Great Migration

2019 ◽  
pp. 97-122
Author(s):  
Jennifer Jensen Wallach
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Food Culture ◽  
Great Migration ◽  
Class Project ◽  
Northern Cities ◽  
The Great Migration

This chapter explores the class tensions inherent in the middle-class project of reforming black food habits, demonstrating that working-class African Americans frequently did not share the certainty that foodways could be used as an avenue for citizenship and doubted many of the assumptions embedded in the project of cultural elevation subscribed to by black food reformers. One of the issues at the heart of the culinary tensions among members of the black community was the emerging question about whether there was a distinctive African American way of eating that was separate from mainstream American food culture. In the context of the Great Migration, “southern” food often became labeled “black” food in the northern cities that served as the terminus for black migrants. This transformation took place much to the consternation of black food reformers who, on the whole, resisted the idea of essential black cultural practices.

ROSCOE CONKLING SIMMONS AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AFRICAN AMERICAN ORATORY

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW KAYE
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Southern States ◽  
Conservative Ideology ◽  
The Press ◽  
Black Public Sphere ◽  
Blacks And Whites ◽  
Family Connection

The black journalist and politician, Roscoe Simmons, was best known for his ability as an orator. Simmons's lecturing activities reveal the networks underlying a black public sphere upon which ambitious black leaders relied to publicize their political agendas. Those networks expanded in the first half of the twentieth century as blacks exploited the press, radio, and other technologies, and as blacks migrated in numbers from the Southern states. Meetings of African Americans served several functions: as opportunities to debate the race's prospects; to voice political concerns; and as sources of entertainment. Simmons incorporated all these principles in his platform performances, as he worked to secure valuable connections with organizations ranging from churches and fraternal bodies to Republican clubs and urban machines. Beginning with his family connection to Booker T. Washington, Simmons cultivated friendships with influential blacks and whites over a period of fifty years. His conservative ideology, however, did not suit all tastes.

scholarly journals Disproportionate COVID-19 Related Mortality Amongst African Americans in Four Southern States in the United States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Betson ◽  
Anirban Maitra
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Conditions ◽  
African American Community ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Southern States ◽  
Percent Change ◽  
Related Mortality

AbstractBackgroundAfrican Americans have been severely affected by COVID-19 noted with the rising mortality rates within the African American community. Health disparities, health inequities and issues with systemic health access are some of the pre-existing issues African Americans were subjected to within the southern states in the United States. Second, social distancing is a critical non-pharmacological intervention to reduce the spread of COVID-19. However, social distancing was not practical and presented a challenge within the African American community, specifically, in the southern states.ObjectiveThis article assesses the effect of COVID-19 on African Americans in the southern states.MethodologyThis short communication queried the publicly available Department of Health statistics on COVID-19 related mortality and underlying health conditions in four southern states (Alabama [AL], Georgia [GA], Louisiana [LA] and Mississippi [MS]) with a high proportion of African American residents. Second, the unacast COVID-19 toolkit was used to derive a social distancing (SD) grade for any given state, based on three different metrics: (i) percent change in average distance travelled (ii) percent change in non-essential visits and (iii) decrease in human encounters (compared to national baseline).ResultsAcross the four states, on average, as many as 54% of COVID-19 related deaths are in the African American community, although this minority group comprises only 32% of the population cumulatively. This article finds that all four southern states received a social distancing grade of F. COVID-19 have demonstrated that adverse outcomes are higher in individuals with underlying health conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, or pre-existing pulmonary compromise.ConclusionThe COVID-19 pandemic has exposed racial disparities in our healthcare system that disproportionately impacts African Americans within the four states of the southern United States. In addition, the lack of diversity in the healthcare system likely impacts this disproportionate impact on African American communities because it is not able to address its primary obligations within minority communities. Recognizing that there is a great need for African American representation or diversity in the health workforce would be able to better address the health disparities.

More Shadow than Substance

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Wright Rigueur
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Substance P ◽  
National Committee ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Black Republicans ◽  
State And Local ◽  
American Party ◽  
Local Party

This chapter studies how, as the 1970s progressed, black Republicans were able to claim clear victories in their march toward equality: the expansion of the National Black Republican Council (NBRC); the incorporation of African Americans into the Republican National Committee (RNC) hierarchy; scores of black Republicans integrating state and local party hierarchies; and individual examples of black Republican success. African American party leaders could even point to their ability to forge a consensus voice among the disparate political ideas of black Republicans. Despite their ideological differences, they collectively rejected white hierarchies of power, demanding change for blacks both within the Grand Old Party (GOP) and throughout the country. Nevertheless, black Republicans quickly realized that their strategy did not reform the party institution.

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