...the early people of Gloucester County were English gentlemen and ladies... Many of these fine old families continued wealthy for generations, until about seventy years ago, when a terrible war, known as the War between the States,... deprived them and their present day descendents of their property and wealth, as well as their Negro slaves who were freed at the time of this war.(Gray 66).;All across the post-Civil War South, the newly freed African Diaspora struggled to find ways to maintain their families and to develop communities. Having been systematically denied education, property ownership, political participation and participation in both the social and economic life of the society built largely upon their labor and hardships, and those of their ancestors, for most of the "Freedmen," the first fruits of Liberty were uncertainty and impoverishment. This study will examine how blacks in Gloucester County responded to the challenges of freedom in different ways and through institutions. at the outbreak of the Civil War, Gloucester County, Virginia, was home to a large population of enslaved Africans and a number of free blacks and free mulattoes. In the aftermath of the War, these groups formed a number of vibrant and, initially, highly successful communities. The collective and individual agencies that led to creation of social, economic, religious and educational institutions as infrastructure for community development will be explored. The study will utilize an interdisciplinary approach to the creation and evolution of churches, schools and cemeteries to trace the impact of such institutions within the history of blacks in the County. Sources will include legal documents, census data, church histories, literary texts, newspaper articles, oral histories, photos and site examinations.;Currently, beyond documents largely generated by the heirs of the Planter Class, there are only minimal records or studies pertaining to the sociocultural processes that guided the formation of Gloucester County's African American communities. The enslaved communities had few institutions through which to stamp their identities upon the region they occupied, in which they labored and died. Dead slaves were buried with little ceremony and no markers. Hence, in areas like Gloucester County, where colonial churches, and their elaborate and ornate cemeteries, commemorate the slave owning community, and where restored plantation "Big Houses" are placed on the "National Register of Historic Sites," or hidden from scrutiny by private ownership, little marks the antebellum presence of the African Diaspora. Thus, the long march of time has eroded the histories of the institutions and individuals that were the chief agents for the growth of Gloucester's African American communities, but did not obliterate them.;This research will focus on a small segment of the African American Diaspora as it moves to establish and stabilize itself in the aftermath of the American Civil War. Thus, by the very nature of Diasporas, it is study of the confluences of agency and accommodation, cooperation and resistance, and of perseverance as well as change and as elements of an overarching survival strategy. Gloucester County's African American communities established churches, cemeteries, domestic burial fields and schools. These institutions and sites became and, in many instances, remain sources of documentary, literary, historical and material evidence of the former richness and continuing importance of Gloucester County' African American past.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation examines trickster sensibilities and behavior as models for racial strategies in contemporary novels by African American and Chinese American authors. While many trickster studies focus on myth, I assert that realist fiction provides a unique historical and cultural space that shapes trickster behavior. John Edgar Wideman, Gloria Naylor, Frank Chin and Maxine Hong Kingston use the trickster in their novels to articulate diverse racial strategies for people of color who must negotiate among a variety of cultural influences. My critical trickster paradigm investigates the motives and behavior of tricksters. It utilizes close literary readings that are strengthened by my comprehensive knowledge of the history of African Americans and Chinese Americans. Throughout time, images that define individuals in both groups develop in the popular imagination. The authors use the trickster to critique and revise those representations. African American authors also influence the racial discourse of Chinese American writers. I concluded that the literary trickster's behavior and sensibilities vary from character to character. I found that African American and Chinese American authors share some racial strategies. They also utilize different racial strategies as a result of the different historical and cultural experiences of African Americans and Chinese Americans. Moreover, male and female African American authors differ in the kinds of racial strategies they advocate, just as male and female Chinese American authors. Such research is significant because of its interdisciplinary exploration of racial strategies of African Americans and Chinese Americans. It provides an alternative approach to the study of the trickster. My work also goes beyond the black/white racial paradigm to explore the cultural dialogue between African American and Chinese American writers.

The recruitment, retention, and promotion of Black women in the academy continue to be a challenge even after numerous policies and programs to rectify historical and social injustices in American society. This study utilized a womanist lens as a framework to conceptualize the interlocking impact of race and gender on the experiences of Black women in higher education. Utilizing a quantitative design, the primary source for the study included data gathered from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty conducted by the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) in survey cycles of 1993, 1999, and 2004. The researcher examined the pace at which Black women full-time faculty have advanced during this period compared to White women full-time faculty.;The results of this study revealed very little difference between the two populations in degree attainment, institution type, age, salary, discipline, workload, productivity, and job satisfaction. The greatest differences were found in marital status and perceptions of fairness. The findings from this study contradict the literature that paints a picture of objective inequality, but leave room for further study based upon the uniqueness of the Black woman's experience when placed in the context of race, gender, and class. It is possible that objective equality of status comes at personal sacrifice that the researcher did not measure or assess. The researcher suggests the study be expanded to include a qualitative segment, which would provide a more holistic picture of the Black woman faculty member.

This exploratory study explored three factors -- self-efficacy, resiliency, and leadership -- that relate to academic success in African American male freshman college students. The study explored how self-efficacy, resiliency, and leadership interrelate, how a pilot group and study group differ in respect to self-efficacy, resiliency, and leadership, and how African American freshman males differ on these factors in respect to key demographic variables.;The study utilized the Student Academic Success Scale (SASS), which was an instrument developed by the researcher in a graduate course. The instrument was administered to 104 participants. Descriptive statistics, correlation coefficients, and a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were data analysis techniques used to interpret data.;Data revealed that participants perceive themselves rather highly on the SASS and that there were positive correlations among all three variables. Furthermore, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that freshmen male students perceive themselves higher on the SASS than students from a pilot group of upperclassmen. Lastly, an ANOVA revealed that African American male freshmen who participated in art programs rated themselves significantly higher on self-efficacy and leadership, while students who participated in mentorship or internship programs rated themselves significantly higher on self-efficacy and resiliency.;Implications of this study indicate that there is a need to develop mentorship and internship opportunities in the elementary, middle, and high school settings for African American males. Moreover, future research should look closely at studying this group longitudinally to evaluate perceptions over a period of time. Another implication for research suggests that comparing a group of African American college males at a Historically Black College or University to African American males at a traditionally White institution on similar dimensions.

The Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina and Virginia stood as a remote landscape in the heart of the Tidewater throughout the historical period. Between ca. 1630 and 1860, thousands of Diasporans took advantage of the remoteness of the swamp in various ways and formed a variety of communities. Within these Diasporic communities were Native Americans, maroons, and enslaved canal company workers who joined or formed communities based on individual and specific reasons for choosing to permanently inhabit the swamp. Diasporic communities emerged on islands in the swamp and the relative locations of these landforms had significant impacts on what kinds of communities would form and persist on each landform. as a result of the florescence of these Diasporic communities, a dynamic political-economic world developed and was sustained in the swamp. This Diasporic world is very poorly understood and recognized in traditional historical discussions and narratives. This exposition utilizes a political-economic landscape perspective that emphasizes community structuration, exile, and alienation in order to interpret the archaeological and historical record at several sites that were explored and partially excavated by the author through the Great Dismal Swamp Landscape Study (2003-2006). Using research models developed for this project, it will be demonstrated that communities maintained differing levels or degrees of connectedness to the world outside the swamp throughout the ca. 230 years prior to the Civil War. Each type of community left behind unique archaeological signatures that provide much insight into community structuration, exchange systems, subsistence systems, and daily life. It will also be shown that archaeological materials and information can provide knowledge about how exile and alienation were a dialectical aspect of the pre-Civil War political economy of the swamp. Through this comparative historical archaeological study and its political-economic landscape perspective, we will gain new and unique insights into the Diasporic world of the Great Dismal Swamp.

No description available.

Bound together across lines of color and lass, Nantucket and New Bedford residents pursued the unique economic opportunities presented by whaling during the nineteenth century. Whaling was becoming a major industrial enterprise with few available options to fulfill the labor needs required for the whaling crews, ropewalks, blacksmith shops, and sail lofts that made it possible for Nantucket and New Bedford whaleships to transit the globe. Whaling thus generated the jobs that made it possible for free black communities to thrive. People of color consequently turned the need for labor to their advantage. Drawn by the financial opportunities that the whaling industry offered, people of color were able to do much more than break the bonds of impoverishment. Side by side with white activists, many people of color channeled their energy toward advancing the cause of freedom and equality.;Black abolitionism included much more of the community than the few black leaders who have long received credit as the driving forces of abolitionism in antebellum America. Free people of color in Nantucket and New Bedford lived out on a daily basis the truth that freedom did not necessarily imply equality in nineteenth-century America. Living in separate worlds carved out of shared communities, people of color in Nantucket and New Bedford joined with white activists during the 1800s to seek a new birth of freedom. How race relations, class divisions, religion, and economic conditions unique to the maritime economy of Nantucket and New Bedford drove the struggle for change lies at the center of this story.