<p> The obesity epidemic continues to be a major concern in the United States. The World Health Organization reported that 1.4 billion adults were either obese or overweight. African American (AA) women have the highest incidence of obesity worldwide. The obesity rate among AAs has continued to rise over the past 2 decades. The problem is that AA women prepare and consume high caloric foods that contribute to obesity. This qualitative descriptive study explored the perceptions that obese AA women have about altering how they prepare soul food to make it a healthier soul food. The empowerment model and the health belief model were used to frame this study. Data were collected using a non-probability purposeful sampling strategy. The sample for this study consisted of 4 focus groups with 6-7 obese AA women (<i> n</i> = 25) who prepare and consume high caloric soul foods and have a body mass index of 30 and above. Focus group transcripts were analyzed using a constant comparative analysis and NVivo 11 computer software. It was found that obese AA women were willing to alter their traditional soul food preparation only if it tastes good. It was also found that participants would maintain new healthier eating behaviors depending on the taste, availability of recipes to use, low cost of healthy ingredients, accessibility of the ingredients, learning how to substitute various herbs and spices, and amount of food waste. Barriers that could limit participation in an intervention designed to develop healthier eating habits were identified as ignorance and laziness, transportation issues, lack of motivation, lack of education, lack of time, no incentives, and bad reviews.</p><p>

<p> This narrative inquiry study focused on the research question: <i> How do lived experiences during college contribute to racial identity formation of Black or biracial students who were adopted domestically by White parents? </i> The purpose of the study was to better understand the racial identity development of transracial adoptees (TRA) during the college years. Data consisted of over 35 hours of interviews conducted with five TRA college juniors and seniors using a series of three interview protocols. The first interview focused on childhood and hometown experiences, the second on life experiences during the college years, and the third interview focused on the meaning participants made from the first two sets of questions. Three principle themes emerged from the data, as well as a variety of sub-themes. The first theme was labeled <i> Difference,</i> with sub-themes of <i>Fitting in, Navigating Black Societal Norms,</i> and <i>Common Experiences.</i> The second theme, <i>Racism,</i> included sub-themes labeled <i>Racist Encounters, Color-blindness/Parental Education,</i> and <i>Preparation Against Racism.</i> The final theme was labeled <i>Resilience,</i> and included the sub-themes <i>Connectedness, Faith,</i> and <i> Counseling.</i> Analysis of interview data revealed three main supports that participants perceived to be instrumental in their racial identity development during college: study abroad experiences, mentors, and diversity/ethnic studies courses. Implications for practice include adding adoption-related items to admissions questionnaires, situating supports for TRA students within a specific office such as Multi-Cultural Centers or Wellness Centers, and adding training in adoption issues for on-campus counselors and student affairs professionals.</p><p>

<p> The objective of this project was to empower Nehemiah Baptist Church, collaborative partners and residents' in a youth violence reduction initiative. Implementation occurred on the Westside of Detroit, Michigan. The mixed research utilized: (1) participant observations; (2) focus groups; (3) survey and questionnaires; and (4) data collection from interviews, newspapers and published reports. The findings clarified approaches for community engagement and isolated barriers. The summary conclusion supports the church, collaborative partners and residents' engagement in community events that may significantly reduce youth violence. Also, prevailing faith-based community advocacy participatory therapeutic strategies indicates religion does matter in violence reduction.</p><p>

<p> This study&rsquo;s purpose was to document African American community college student experiences related to new theory at the nexus of relational care theory and BlackCrit, specifically, radical care theory. Faculty-student relational care experiences have demonstrated significant power to both support and empower historically minoritized African American students in community college. Impactful faculty-student relationships positively influence students in academics, their personal lives, and as members of the African American community. Utilizing a framework of care theory and BlackCrit with corresponding critical methodology, this study determined that radical care interactions between faculty members and students affirms students such that they perform better academically, realize positive effects in their personal lives, and engage differently as members of the Black community, both on and off-campus. Results demonstrate the significant importance of college faculty member selection aligned to those who demonstrate reciprocal, genuine care in their work with students. It further highlights the imperative of professional development dedicated both to enhancing academe awareness of radical care, and to the development of radical care attributes in community college faculty. Dedicated radical care serves to counters deficit thinking and opportunity gaps existing between African American community college students and peers of other races. The study open avenues for further exploration of radical care among and between other historically marginalized groups, and for continued research into radical care singularity, that is, care proffered by professors of the same race. Radical care principles are widely applicable and provide opportunities for study between classified staff members and students.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation seeks to examine the schooling experiences of African American males attending predominately White independent schools in California. Using Critical Race Theory as a theoretical framework and the factors contributing to schooling experiences, this qualitative research explores the role of student self-perception, teacher expectations, and parent involvement as contributing factors to participants overall schooling experiences. Utilizing counterstorytelling as a means of capturing the rich narratives shared by the participants, data analysis included holistic content coding based on themes that emerged from narrative examination. Findings indicate how parent involvement became the overarching critical component that was most significant in positive schooling experiences for Black males. These findings also support the need to continue to examine the shortage of literature examining the schooling experiences of Black males in predominately White independent schools.</p><p>

<p> African American males are killed by gun violence at a greater risk than any other ethnic group, leaving African Americans mothers to cope with grief at disproportionately high rates. A phenomenological method was used to explore the lived experiences of African American women whose sons were killed by gun violence in Philadelphia using Rando&rsquo;s (1993) six &ldquo;R&rdquo; processes of complicated grief theory as a framework. Six themes emerged from the research: faith and spirituality, giving back to the community, personal relationships with others after the death of a son, connections with son after death, worldview, and double grief. Many of these findings indicate that mothers experience and struggle through the &ldquo;R&rdquo; processes of grief; they also experience a unique conflict the researcher has termed double grief, the phenomenon of grieving for oneself and for the mother of the perpetrator. This new concept emerged from the research and is discussed along with recommendations and ideas for future research.</p><p>

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

<p> <i>Liberating Blackness: African-American Prison Writers and the Creation of the Black Revolutionary</i> takes an in-depth look at a selection of works written by African-American writers who, in autobiographies and novels written during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, utilized their own experiences with the carceral system to articulate revolutionary Black identities capable of resisting racial oppression. To articulate these revolutionary Black identities these authors would develop counter-narratives to three key historical discourses&mdash;scientific discourses of Black bodies, pedagogical discourses of Black minds, and political discourses of Black communities&mdash;that had, respectively, defined Black bodies and Black intellects as inferior to White bodies and White intellects, and subordinated the political interests of Black communities to White communities. These discourses would be used by state and federal agencies to justify racially disparate practices and processes of incarceration. In my first two chapters, I closely read <i> The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Soledad Brother, Assata: An Autobiography, </i> and <i>Angela Davis: An Autobiography</i> to look at how, respectively, Malcolm X, George Jackson, Assata Shakur, and Angela Davis utilize their own experiences in prison to craft counter-narratives about Black bodies and Black minds. I argue that while these counter-narratives aided readers in developing Black identities resistant to racist stereotypes, the dialectical frameworks that X and Jackson used in shaping their revolutionary subjectivities, informed by heteronormative, misogynist, and patriarchal beliefs, had the effect of (re)producing many of the practices of exclusion that justified the carceral system. In reaction, Black women prison writers, like Davis and Shakur, would utilize a dialogical model to develop a revolutionary Black female intersubjectivity based on practices of inclusivity, diversity and community. In my last chapter, I explore the novels <i>Iron City</i> by Lloyd L. Brown, and <i>House of Slammers</i> by Nathan Heard, novels written at the beginning and end of the era I review, to display how the counter-narratives put forth by all of these authors shaped the political landscape during the Civil Rights and Black Power eras. I argue that the changes in tone between these two works, from optimism to pessimism, reflect on how X and Jackson&rsquo;s dialectical models encouraged the political balkanization of Civil Rights and Black Power organizations, which inhibited them from mounting as effective a resistance against the carceral state as they could have had they taken heed of Davis and Shakur&rsquo;s intersubjective model.</p>

Black communities located in cities across the country became sites of explosive political unrest during the mid-1960s. These uprisings coincided with a period of intensified political activity among African Americans nationally, and played a decisive role in expanding national concern with black political struggle from a singular focus on the Civil Rights movement led by black southerners to consider the "race problem" clearly present in the cities of the North and West. Moreover, unrest within urban black communities emerged at a time when alternate political analyses of the relationship between black people and the American state that challenged the goal of integration and presented different visions of black freedom and identity were gaining considerable traction. The most receptive audience for these radical and nationalist critiques was found among black students and cadres of militant, young black people living in cities who insisted on the right to self determination for black people, and advocated liberation through revolution and the application of black power to secure control over their communities as the most appropriate goal of black political struggle. The following study examines grassroots political organizations formed by black people in Cleveland, Ohio during the early 1960s in order to analyze the development of the tactics, strategies, and ideologies that became hallmarks of Black Power by the end of the decade. These developments are understood within the context of ongoing political struggle, and particular attention is paid to the machinations of the multifaceted system of racial oppression that shaped the conditions against which black Clevelanders fought. This struggle, initially aimed at securing unrestricted employment, housing, and educational opportunities for black people, and curtailing episodes of police brutality against them, culminated in five days of unrest during July 1966. The actions of city officials, especially the Mayor and members of the Cleveland Police Department, during the Hough uprising clarified the nature of black oppression in Cleveland, thereby illuminating the need for and uses of both the formal political power of the ballot, as well as the power of the bullet to defend black people and communities through the force of arms.