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Global Garveyism

Adam Ewing

Ronald J. Stephens (ed.)

Garveyism was carried across the globe following the First World War, generating the largest mass movement in the history of the African diaspora. Throughout Africa and Europe, the Americas and ... More

Garveyism was carried across the globe following the First World War, generating the largest mass movement in the history of the African diaspora. Throughout Africa and Europe, the Americas and Oceania, the ideas and praxis of Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey and his followers sparked anti-colonial and anti-racist mobilizations, both within Garvey’s organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, and without. This volume—the first edited collection devoted to Garveyism studies in three decades—showcases original essays by scholars working in Africa, the West Indies, the Hispanic Caribbean, North America, and Australia. The work in this volume and elsewhere has rendered untenable the longstanding idea that Garveyism was a brief and misguided phenomenon, or that it was a sideshow to the normative political trajectories of African American, Caribbean, African, and global history. The essays in this volume instead encourage students and scholars to rethink the emergence of black nationalism and modern black politics in a manner that moves Garveyism from the margins of analysis to the center. They suggest the need to revisit local, regional, national, and global histories in light of what Garveyism scholars have uncovered.Less

Robert R. Church Jr. and the African American Political Struggle

Darius J. Young

This book examines the life and career of Robert R. Church Jr., who grew up the son of the first black millionaire in Memphis, Tennessee, and would eventually surpass his father’s notoriety as the ... More

This book examines the life and career of Robert R. Church Jr., who grew up the son of the first black millionaire in Memphis, Tennessee, and would eventually surpass his father’s notoriety as the most influential black Republican of his era. In particular this book uses Church’s life as a lens into the political activity of African Americans during the first half of the twentieth century. It focuses on the strategies that Church, as a member of the black elite, used to organize and empower black people through the vote. Church believed that voting served as the most pragmatic approach for African Americans to obtain full citizenship in this country. Through the organization he founded, the Lincoln League of America, Church demonstrated the political agency of African Americans on a national level. Church used the arena of politics to interject the plight of the black community into the national political discourse. By enfranchising thousands of black southerners and developing a substantial voting constituency, black voters could have their voices heard among the nation's most prominent policy makers. Less

Florida and the 2016 Election of Donald J. Trump

Matthew T. Corrigan and Michael Binder (eds)

In one of the surprising US presidential elections in recent history, the Florida played a central role in the election of reality/star businessman Donald Trump.This book examines the importance of ... More

In one of the surprising US presidential elections in recent history, the Florida played a central role in the election of reality/star businessman Donald Trump.This book examines the importance of Florida as a bellwether for recent presidential elections and how Donald Trump won the state.A group of high-profile political scientists who are experts in Florida politics examined the 2016 presidential election in the state.How Donald Trump dispatched two favorite sons in the state—former governor Jeb Bush and US Senator Marco Rubio—is explained.The areas of the state where Trump won the close race (especially the I-4 corridor) are studied.The importance of the surprising Hispanic vote is documented. Finally the use of early voting and how election administrators confronted allegations of “rigged results” in the state is also examined.Less

Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America

Damian Alan Pargas (ed.)

Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America examines and contrasts the experiences of various groups of African-American slaves who tried to escape bondage between the revolutionary era ... More

Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America examines and contrasts the experiences of various groups of African-American slaves who tried to escape bondage between the revolutionary era and the U.S. Civil War. Whereas much of the existing scholarship tends to focus on fugitive slaves in very localized settings (especially in communities and regions north of the Mason-Dixon line), the eleven contributions in this volume bring together the latest scholarship on runaway slaves in a diverse range of geographic settings throughout North America—from Canada to Virginia and from Mexico to the British Bahamas—providing a broader and more continental perspective on slave refugee migration. The volume innovatively distinguishes between various “spaces of freedom” to which runaway slaves fled, specifically sites of formal freedom (free-soil regions where slavery had been abolished and refugees were legally free, even if the meanings of freedom in these places were heavily contested); semi-formal freedom (free-soil regions where slavery had been abolished but asylum for runaway slaves was either denied or contested, such as the northern U.S., where state abolition laws were curtailed by federal fugitive slave laws); and informal freedom (places within the slaveholding South where runaways formed maroon communities or attempted to blend in with free black populations and pass for free). This edited volume encourages scholars to reroute and reconceptualize the geography of slavery and freedom in antebellum North America.Less

Detain and Punish: Haitian Refugees and the Rise of the World's Largest Immigration Detention System

Carl Lindskoog

In Detain and Punish, Carl Lindskoog provides the first in-depth history of immigration detention in the United States. Employing extensive archival research to document the origins and development ... More

In Detain and Punish, Carl Lindskoog provides the first in-depth history of immigration detention in the United States. Employing extensive archival research to document the origins and development of immigration detention in the U.S. from 1973 to 2000, it reveals how the world’s largest detention system originated in the U.S. government’s campaign to exclude Haitians from American shores, and how resistance by Haitians and their allies constantly challenged the detention regime. From the Krome Avenue Detention Center in Miami, to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and to jails and prisons across the country, Haitians have been at the center of the story of immigration detention. Contrary to the notion that immigration detention serves a merely administrative function, this history shows the intentionally punitive design of the modern detention regime. From its origin, immigration detention was designed to deter asylum seekers and unauthorized migrants by depriving them of their liberty; to detain and punish. And while Haitians were the first to be targeted by this deterrence-through-punishment policy, Central American asylum seekers and many others were soon ensnared in the expanding web of detention. Just as immigration detention was re-emerging in the late-1970s, taking root in the 1980s, and then exploding in the 1990s, the United States was constructing a parallel system of mass incarceration for its own citizens. Racialized mass incarceration for both citizens and non-citizens thus emerged as a critical element of social, political, and economic life in the United States in the late-twentieth century. This book explains how it came to be.Less

Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power

Matthew Hild and Keri Leigh Merritt (eds)

Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power presents fresh and original scholarship that reexamines and reinterprets the field. The first collection of essays on southern labor ... More

Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power presents fresh and original scholarship that reexamines and reinterprets the field. The first collection of essays on southern labor history in six years, its broad chronological sweep distinguishes it from all of the collections that have appeared during the last forty years. Collectively, these essays cover virtually the entire span of United States history, from the early national period following the American Revolution through the twenty-first century. The essays that examine the antebellum South demonstrate that the problems of southern labor in that era still carry relevance in the twenty-first century and merit scholars’ attention. Furthermore, whereas the “new labor history” that was prevalent from the 1970s to the 1990s generally discouraged a focus upon institutional history (i.e., labor unions), the recent trend, as labor unions have gone into sharp decline in the United States in the last thirty-five years, has been to give unions and their importance more careful consideration while still maintaining focus on issues of class, race, gender, and the agency of individual workers. Many of these essays reflect this trend, as they bring unions or antebellum workingmen’s associations back into labor history without abandoning the methodologies and perspectives that were developed by new labor historians of previous generations.Less

Queering the Redneck Riviera: Sexuality and the Rise of Florida Tourism

Jerry T. Watkins III

After World War II, increasing numbers of southerners began populating the beaches of North Florida thanks to expanding automobility, better roads, and the new civic virtue: leisure spending. This ... More

After World War II, increasing numbers of southerners began populating the beaches of North Florida thanks to expanding automobility, better roads, and the new civic virtue: leisure spending. This inaugurated fierce competition for tourist dollars as motels, amusements, and restaurants replaced sand dunes at an ever-increasing rate. The quest for tourists had dramatic impact inland as well, as county governments, state-level commissions, and politicians grappled with maintaining a favorable public image in the search for increased revenue. Conflicts over how best to capitalize on tourism and sell their slice of “The Sunshine State” erupted as municipalities sought to purge an ever-shifting array of undesirables, exemplified by the slogan changes from “Redneck Riviera” to the aspirational “Miracle Strip” or “Emerald Coast.” Gay men, lesbians, and the otherwise queer were an essential part of “The Sunshine State.” Placing them at the center of this story exposes the unique interactions of capitalism, tourism, sexuality, and space. More than just a story of repression, this work also seeks to illuminate the fun that could be had on what came to be known as “The USA’s Gay Riviera” by the early 1990s. Using oral histories, newspapers, and a variety of other sources, this work recovers stories of campy LGBT beach parties, forgotten gay bars, and friendship networks that spanned the South.Less

Race, Place, and Memory: Deep Currents in Wilmington, North Carolina

Margaret M. Mulrooney

A revealing work of public history that shows how communities remember their pasts in different ways to fit specific narratives, Race, Place, and Memory charts the ebb and flow of racial violence in ... More

A revealing work of public history that shows how communities remember their pasts in different ways to fit specific narratives, Race, Place, and Memory charts the ebb and flow of racial violence in Wilmington, North Carolina, from the 1730s to the present day. Margaret Mulrooney argues that white elites have employed public spaces, memorials, and celebrations to maintain the status quo. The port city has long celebrated its white colonial revolutionary origins, memorialized Decoration Day, and hosted Klan parades. Other events, such as the Azalea Festival, have attempted to present a false picture of racial harmony to attract tourists. And yet, the revolutionary acts of Wilmington’s African American citizens—who also demanded freedom, first from slavery and later from Jim Crow discrimination—have gone unrecognized. As a result, beneath the surface of daily life, collective memories of violence and alienation linger among the city’s black population. Mulrooney describes her own experiences as a public historian involved in the centennial commemoration of the so-called Wilmington Race Riot of 1898, which perpetuated racial conflicts in the city throughout the twentieth century. She shows how, despite organizers’ best efforts, a white-authored narrative of the riot’s contested origins remains. Mulrooney makes a case for public history projects that recognize the history-making authority of all community members and prompts us to reconsider the memories we inherit.Less

Everybody's Problem: The War on Poverty in Eastern North Carolina

Karen M. Hawkins

Everybody’s Problem: The War on Poverty in Eastern North Carolina puts forward a new and broader understanding of the factors that contributed to declining poverty rates during the 1960s and beyond. ... More

Everybody’s Problem: The War on Poverty in Eastern North Carolina puts forward a new and broader understanding of the factors that contributed to declining poverty rates during the 1960s and beyond. The main focus of this study is Craven County, North Carolina, home to the nation’s first rural antipoverty program to receive federal funds as part of President Johnson’s War on Poverty. After quickly creating local contoversy in its first year, the program—much to the surprise of its conservative critics—survived through the remainder of the decade and into the next. Most responsible was the large presence and influence of moderates, both white and black, who kept it going out of a strong desire to improve economic development and opportunity in their community. In addition to focusing on urban areas, scholars have largely underappreciated the practicality and effectiveness of cooperation, compromise, and other forms of moderate leadership in their analyses of the social change that occurred during the 1960s. They have generally argued that confrontation and direct protest against those in power were among the most effective means for the poor to achieve economic empowerment. While protest and other forms of confrontation were sometimes key tactics in creating change, they were not always the most successful ones in Eastern North Carolina. Aiming to build upon existing research on the War on Poverty, this book tells a fuller story of what community action entailed and how it functioned in a local community.Less

Between Washington and Du Bois: The Racial Politics of James Edward Shepard

Reginald K. Ellis

The purpose of this manuscript is threefold. First, it will serve as a cultural biography of Dr. James Edward Shepard and the National Religious Training Institute and Chautauqua for the Negro Race ... More

The purpose of this manuscript is threefold. First, it will serve as a cultural biography of Dr. James Edward Shepard and the National Religious Training Institute and Chautauqua for the Negro Race and later the North Carolina College for Negroes (which became North Carolina Central University). Second, it will argue that black college presidents of the early twentieth century such as Shepard were more than academic leaders; they were race leaders. Shepard’s role at the NRTIC/NCC was to develop a race through this institution. Lastly, this study argues that Shepard, like most black college presidents, did not focus primarily on the difference between liberal arts and vocational education. Rather, he considered the most practical ways to uplift his race. Therefore, this study will be more than a biography of an influential African American, but an analytical study of a black leader during the age of Jim Crow in the South.Less