Utilizing Afrocentric thought, this dissertation examines digital Pan-Africanism as a new theory that demonstrates the liberatory potential of digital technology including internet-based writing and businesses. Focusing on the burgeoning Black travel industry, it specifically considers contemporary travel narratives written by African Americans visiting Egypt and includes a thematic analysis of travel blog posts. It highlights the role technology plays in making international travel more accessible to African Americans and the potential that diasporic travel has in creating and strengthening inter-cultural bonds between African people throughout the diaspora. To this end, this dissertation advocates utilizing digital platforms as a tool for increased diasporic travel and Pan-African activism. It conceptualizes this new theory, discusses its implications within and outside of the travel industry, and offers a model to demonstrate its effectiveness and applicability. / African American Studies

This dissertation examines African colonization and Native removal colonization schemes and their relationship to the development of states carved out of the Northwest Territory. Colonization advocates sought to expunge the nation of slavery, free blacks, and native peoples to make a white republic. This research contends that colonization promoted racial nationalism by campaigning for a safe and homogenous nation free of slavery, ‘degraded’ free blacks, and dangerous Native Americans. It explores the execution and afterlives of American projects for African colonization, through the American Colonization Society, and Native Removal in the Old Northwest. It examines the rhetoric and procedures related to the colonization of Native Americans in the West and free blacks to Liberia in which government officials, journalists, settlers, businessmen, missionaries, and clergy in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois traded in fears of racial degradation and national security as a means to generate fiscal support and positive public opinion for legislation and policies that attempted to create a white republic. Colonizationists appropriated imperial relocation solutions to the domestic problems of black freedom and Native sovereignty that they construed as prohibitory to national expansion and development. Ventures to deport Native Americans and African Americans successfully constructed them as dangerous aliens within the nation that validated their exclusion. In their resistance African Americans, Native Americans, and their allies adapted, fled, petitioned, ridiculed, and negotiated with colonizationist endeavors to maintain residence in the Midwest. The fictions of colonization, driven by its rhetoric, required new constructions about black and Native degradation to justify the calls for their removal. / History

This research analyzes the lives and works of Black visual artists and filmmakers as visual representations of haptic events. This thesis examines how the lives of the artists and specific works of art are entangled with sound and quiet and directly reflect and shape the complexities black interiority. The possibilities of the black interior expand when the senses are combined and how the utilization of that synthesis centers the interior lives, ideas and art of black people. Centering the interior life creates space for the humanity of black people to be fully realized and explored without disruption both individually and collectively. Artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Hammons, Nick Cave and filmmakers Arthur Jafa and Kahlil Joseph’s work is used to illustrate how a haptic event is formed, how the haptic event effects both the artist and the audience and how the outcome of the haptic informs the present moment and often surpass the confines of language. This project extends the concept of Hapticality and the futurity of black interior life as a site of reflection, expression and resistance. / African American Studies

The six piano suites of R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943) constitute a substantial body of piano music that illustrates the musical development of an important, but historically neglected American musician. Dett was a seminal figure in the preservation and study of spirituals, both as a writer and choral leader, and as a great teacher and inspirer of African-American musicians in the generations that followed him. Educated at Oberlin and Eastman, he was lauded as the first American composer to fuse Negro folk music with European art music tradition. The writing of a series of like-genre works over a composer's lifetime, reflecting stylistic changes and a deepening world view, is a special event in the history of keyboard music. Unfortunately, Dett's piano music is rarely performed except for the second of the suites, In the Bottoms. Although his importance to African-American musical history is generally acknowledged by musicologists, his works for piano have remained largely unexplored by performers. Dett's eclectic pursuits included poetry, the Rosicrucian Society, and religion. This study explores the connections between the suites and other musical styles and traditions, Dett's many extra-musical interests, and his performing life. It also offers some possible explanations for the relative lack of attention received by his piano music. This study incorporates research from readily-available sources, as well as the Nathaniel Dett archives at the Niagara Falls New York Public Library and Hampton University. The first three chapters give an overview of Dett's style and influences, as well as a description of how his musical language developed from his first suite, Magnolia (1912), to his last, Eight Bible Vignettes (1941-43), written at the end of his life. Each suite is examined individually in detail in the following six chapters. It is hoped that this work will stimulate appreciation of Dett's piano music and lead to more frequent performances. Its goal is to give to the reader the same sense of admiration and joy that the author's exploration of these works has given him. / Music Performance

In 1959, as a reaction to the 1954 Supreme Court's Brown vs Board of Education desegregation decision all public schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia were closed. This dissertation explores one group's response to the schools closings by examining the patterns of resilience that emerged among a group of African American women in Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia. Using a multi-disciplinary synthesis of research in education, history, geography, sociology, social movements, personal interviews and questionnaires this dissertation investigated the development of resilience at the grassroots level. African American women are taught early in their socialization process the value of independence, mutual aid, religiosity, community stability, and respect for elders. The school closings didn't just affect the children of Farmville, it changed families and communities, but most particularly it changed the lives of Farmville's women. Much of the research demonstrates that resilience and activism in oppressed communities has a dual nature that surfaces when those communities are under stress. Resilience among this group of African American women emerged both organically and as a result of their religious and community involvements. ii African American women experienced the cultural, educational, contextual, social, behavioral, and political worlds in Farmville, Virginia, from an "outsider within" perspective. When they stepped outside their socially and psychologically constricted lives they developed resilience fortified with both historic and personal commitment. In examining broadly the history of education in Virginia, the historic allegiances of African American women to community, religion, identity, education, and place a fuller understanding of the processes of the development of resilience emerges. This examination moved Black women from the margins to the center of the debate on resilience. The development of personal agency in Farmville was courageous and could have been physically dangerous. However, as the civil rights movement captured the American consciousness, the women of Farmville engaged in a unique social movement that would sustain a campaign for education parity. / Urban Education

This study explores a place based pedagogy of Philadelphia jazz history for K-12 students. While many intersections exist between place based programming and jazz public history both nationally and locally, the Philadelphia jazz public history community does not focus on educational programming. Though centered in Philadelphia, this study includes educational materials and field research for both formal and informal educators to increase critical, interdisciplinary African American musical history content in the classroom. The lesson plans found within exemplify a cross section of social studies educational literature, the history of African American narratives in Philadelphia schools, and place based jazz history in the city. / History

While the marriage prospects of educated African American women are of particular interest to the media and scholars alike, very rarely do these two groups examine the ways in which African American men understand and perceive marriage. In particular, though they have successfully provided socio-cultural and historically specific examinations of the topic, scholars of African American Studies have not conducted in-depth empirical analyses of African American dating and marriage practices. Simultaneously, social scientists, while providing significant empirical data, have not supported their work with a cultural analysis specific to African American people. In an effort to merge these two areas of scholarship, this dissertation investigated the dating and relationship ideals of college-educated Black men and women. The purpose of this study was to: (1) discover what traits and criteria males and females consider most important in a potential mate, (2) understand the role that the current social and marriage market conditions such as sex ratio, socioeconomic status and education level play in mate selection among college educated Black men and women and (3) develop a culturally specific theory of Black marriage. Through the use of surveys administered online and in face-to-face sessions, this dissertation sought to explore how predictor variables such as age, sex, family economic status and education level influence how 123 college-educated Black males and females ages 18 and over view their dating and marriage prospects and the types of characteristics they assign to the ideal mate. Preliminary findings showed that participants placed a high level of importance on getting married, had positive attitudes toward marriage and were optimistic about their marriage prospects. Additionally, factors such as mate availability, educational attainment and economic ability were of particular importance to participants and play a role in their choices about if, when and who they would marry. Lastly, the author articulated a theory of marriage, the Preliminary Intersectional Factor Theory of Marriage Attitudes and Marital Behavior. Based on the findings, it was argued that the proposed preliminary theory of marriage takes into account the structural, economic and cultural factors that intersect to shape the lives, marital attitudes and marital behavior of Black men and women in America. / African American Studies

This dissertation seeks to examine the obstacles and experiences of a Black female charter school leader using an Africentric approach to educating Black children, and ways in which social and material inequalities may have shaped her journey. A conceptual framework that blends African-centered pedagogy, African womanism, and transformational leadership is used to guide this qualitative autoethnographic study. Use of the autoethnographic method provides an opportunity to examine the relational dynamics of the experiences of this Black female charter school leader in the cultural context of the Black community and neoliberal education. Data analysis is captured from autobiographical storytelling within three key time periods or epochs of her 17-year experience starting, operating, and closing a charter school. Data analysis includes coding based on themes that emerged from the data collection process. Findings indicate how attempts to implement an African-centered approach to educating Black children in a DC charter school in the U.S. Eurocentric education model in the neoliberal era was compromised by neoliberal policies, particularly high-stakes testing, a history of separate and unequal education, the lack of support for African-centered education, and the lack of access to facilities. These findings also support the need to continue to examine how non-European children can be educated, not just schooled, in a manner that places them at the center of their learning, builds agency, and develops them into creative and critical thinkers and future builders.

Historically, African American male students have been marginalized in our society and we have seen the repeatedly through the media, educational statistics, and prison statistics. This study was completed to examine the intersection of race and gender in urban classroom setting by looking at the impact of African American male student. This study challenges culturally responsive pedagogy and looks at a more specific pedagogy, African Centered pedagogy to determine the effective practices African American female educators use to positively impact the African American male student in the classroom setting. The data collected in this study demonstrated that African American female educators make a conscious effort to prepare African American male students in their class for the obstacles they will have to face in society. They provide positive classroom environments and multiple opportunities for these students when American society does not, and they demonstrate a critical understanding of the gendered experiences of African American students and act accordingly. This study proposes that there is a need for a more specific pedagogy introduced in teacher education programs in order to prepare not only African American educators but also all educators to better support African American male students by using Black feminist thought.

Within the field of study concerning 20th century Black Nationalist movements in the United States scholars and historians have primarily focused on two aspects of the movement: The Marcus Garvey era of the early twentieth century and the Black Power movement of the tumultuous 1960s and early 1970s. In regards to the decades in between, the 30s, 40s and the 50s, scholars have been in comparison relatively silent. While at first glance, it may appear that nationalist movements were dormant during these years, the research will show evidence to the contrary. The project establishes that during the 30 year period between Marcus Garvey and the UNIA and the Black Radicalism period of the 1960s, the Black Nationalist movement was expanding and evolving under the leadership of Religious Black Nationalist organizations. The research focuses on the ideologies, activities, and the political transformations in Black Nationalism that occurred within the following Religious Black Nationalist organizations: the Black Hebrew Israelites, the Father Divine Movement, and the Nation of Islam. These groups combined different expressions of the Black Nationalism. To varying degrees the Black Hebrew Israelites, Father Divine, and the Nation of Islam incorporated Black Nationalist elements into their spiritual messages. The research finds that these Religious Black Nationalist organizations were the forefathers of the Black Power organizations that were prevalent in the 1960s. These groups provided models to the next generation for mobilization, spreading their message, setting up economic foundations for their movements, and perhaps most importantly organizing politically within a system that did not recognize them.