<p> The purpose of this case study was to investigate the experiences of first-year African American males who participated in a Living Learning Community (LLC) while attending a Historically Black College and University (HBCU), to understand how, if at all, the program had any impact on the participants&rsquo; retention. The conceptual framework for this study was derived from the student integration model (Tinto, 1993). </p><p> Research was conducted on the campus of a mid-sized HBCU located in the southeastern region of the United States. Over a period of four weeks, data were collected from students participating in the LLC. Data collection methods included 12 in-depth interviews, 12 residence hall observations, 4 classroom observations, and information from reports obtained from the institution. Themes and subject categories from the interviews and observations were determined using a combination of In Vivo (Creswell, 2013; Saldana, 2013) and open coding (Corbin &amp; Strauss, 2007). </p><p> Findings from the case study showed students in the LLC perceived they experienced and/or received several academic benefits associated with their participation, such as knowledge and use of academic support services including academic advising, tutorial services, and supplemental instruction. The students also perceived they experienced more social connectivity with their fellow LLC members and participated in more social events compared to those not in the LLC. Additionally, the participants commented the program made it easier for them to make friends, which facilitated a smoother transition to college. Students also directly associated their LLC participation with increasing their likelihood of being retained. </p><p> Based on these findings, a foundation for understanding how LLCs on HBCU campuses can positively impact first-year African American males will be established. The conclusions drawn from the study will advise higher education practitioners on methods to enhance outcomes for African American male students on HBCU campuses using LLC programming.</p>

<p> This dissertation focuses on the artwork of J.B. Murray, an African American artist from Mitchell, Georgia. The goal of this dissertation is to explore J.B. Murray&rsquo;s production of protective scripts and spirit figures. Murray created art works that served as the conduit for spiritual healing or protection between his God, his ancestral energies and the recipients or viewers of his work. </p><p> Protection through writing is both an Islamic and indigenous African tradition. Art Historians, after seeing Murray&rsquo;s work, called it masterful art. It is my contention that Murray possessed knowledge that, unbeknownst to him or his ancestors, was passed along to him by his African ancestors. This knowledge is also seen in the work of other African and African American artists in this dissertation, which shows continuity across a wider group as opposed to just one artist. </p><p> Finally, a parallel is draw with African protector and healer, Serigne Bousso, from Touba, Senegal. Murray&rsquo;s experience of visions and protective and healing work parallels the experience of Serigne Bousso within the last 30 years. This parallel is significant in making the connection between Murray, in Georgia, and the possible West African source for his knowledge of visions and protective signs.</p>

<p> The strong black woman (SBW) phenomenon was explored in college-educated African American women in the Los Angeles region. Quantitative measures indicated that these women averaged high levels of stress, depression, and perceived racism. Qualitative data derived from short open-ended questions yielded eight themes describing both the positive aspects of being a SBW (being a role model for family and community, and feeling empowered), as well as its negative aspects (prejudice, internalized bias, stress, masking, self-neglect, and relational strain). Correlational and regression analyses explored the relationships among the quantitative and qualitative variables. Clinical and research implications and recommendations were discussed.</p>

<p> Improving academic achievement for students of color has long been the subject of debate among advocates of education reform (Anyon, 2013; Breitborde &amp; Swiniarski, 2006; Payne, 2008). Some scholars have advocated for the Montessori method as an alternative educational approach to address some chronic problems in public education (Lillard, 2005; Murray, 2011, 2015; Torrance, 2012). Montessori programs are expanding in public schools (National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector, 2014c) at a time when the American public school population is more racially diverse than ever before (Maxwell, 2014). A review of the literature reflects a lack of consensus about the efficacy of Montessori elementary instruction for students of color in general, and lack of attention to outcomes for African American students specifically (Dawson, 1987; Dohrmann, Nishisda, Gartner, Lipsky, &amp; Grimm, 2007; Lopata, Wallace, &amp; Finn, 2005; Mallet &amp; Schroeder, 2015). The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of reading and math instruction for third grade African American students in public Montessori, traditional, and other school choice settings, using end-of-grade standardized test scores from a large, urban district in North Carolina. Stratified sampling was used to select demographically similar traditional and magnet schools for comparison. Group mean reading and math test scores were compared using factorial MANCOVA and MANOVA procedures. African American students at grade three were found to perform at significantly higher levels in both reading and math in public Montessori schools than in traditional schools. No statistically significant difference was found in math achievement between African American third grade students in public Montessori and other magnet programs, although the Montessori group did achieve at significantly higher levels in reading. This suggests that the Montessori method can be an effective pedagogy for African American students, particularly in reading. Based on these results, recommendations are provided for policy, practice, and future research.</p>

<p> In December 1865 the South Carolina State Legislature ratified a series of laws designed to control the social and economic futures of the freedpeople. Informally known as the Black Code, South Carolina&rsquo;s white leadership claimed these laws protected blacks from their own naivet&eacute; in their newfound freedom. Rather, the Black Code relegated African Americans to inferiority and perpetuated the long-standing belief in white supremacy that permeated the South. </p><p> The South Carolina Black Code limited the freedmen&rsquo;s civil rights, regulated their employment opportunities, and attacked the details of their most intimate personal relationships. Despite the challenges they faced, African American&rsquo;s did not quietly accept their new quasi-slave status. In South Carolina, the freedmen voiced their concerns regarding the new laws and became active in state politics. African Americans embraced their opportunity to create positive political change, which along with other factors ultimately led to the demise of the Black Code. With support both locally and nationally, black South Carolinians soon gained rights previously denied to them. In less than a year&rsquo;s time, the South Carolina Black Code ceased to exist as a result of state and federal legislation. </p><p> The significance of the South Carolina Black Code was not as much in the letter of the laws themselves, but rather in the message the creation of the code sent to both the freedpeople and their supporters. To South Carolina&rsquo;s white leadership, though free, African Americans were not their equals. Moreover, the Black Code established precedent for future laws designed to discriminate against African Americans. The Black Code created a foundation for antebellum-like hostilities against former slaves in the post-bellum South. Segregation and violence ensued and fostered a legacy that lasted for almost a century.</p>

<p>ABSTRACT Title of Document: HIGH SCHOOL LEADERS? PERCEPTIONS OF PRACTICES THAT INCREASE GRADUATION RATES FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN MALES Linda Snyder Jones, Doctor of Education, 2015 Directed By: Dr. Dennis Kivlighan Department of Counseling, Higher Education and Special Education Research indicates there are significant differences in the academic performance of minorities and whites, particularly at the high school level. On average, Latino and African American high school students read and perform math on the same level as 13-year-old white students and trail their white peers by an average of 20 test points on math and reading assessments (Wiltz, 2012; Education Week, 2011; Education Trust, 2003). White and Asian students are still twice as likely as Black and Hispanic students to take classes that are considered academically challenging. Fewer than 10% of African American students participated in rigorous courses in 2009 (Education Week, 2011; NCES, 2009). Moreover, data show 54% of African Americans graduate from high school, compared with more than 75% of white and Asian students. Educational disparities are especially apparent between African American males and other groups regarding graduation rates. A report by the U.S. Department of Education (2013) shows that graduation rates are at their highest with 76.8% graduation rate in 1973 compared to 81% graduation rate in 2012(NCES, 2009, NCES, 2013). Despite this increase, one million students failed to graduate in 2013 most of whom were minorities (Richmond, 2013). The Schott Foundation for Public Education (2012) documented that in public education, of all ethnic/racial or gender groups, African American males have been least likely to secure a diploma four years after beginning high school. The major research questions guiding this study were: (1) What practices do school-based leaders use to improve the high school graduation rates of African American males? (A) Are there other strategies school-based leaders might consider implementing to continue raising the graduation rates for African American males? Using qualitative methods and an ethnographic case study design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six high school-based leaders-- two principals, two assistant principals, one guidance counselor and one alternative-1 teacher. Findings revealed seven major themes and three minor themes. Major themes included: student/teacher relationship, mentoring programs, academic support, making school connections, data monitoring/assessment, teacher expectations and teacher professional development. Minor themes were comprised of: student self-esteem, parent involvement and funding for programs.

<p> This dissertation examines the art and material culture of the Anglo-American cotton trade in the nineteenth century to consider how these transnational processes influenced different modes of production: artistic, industrial and textile. The Anglo-American cotton trade's importance in the nineteenth century rested on the Atlantic slave trade and its aftereffects. Therefore this study foregrounds the centrality of African American history and culture to the trade's structures of exchange, encounter and transmission as they inflected nineteenth-century British and American artistic production and industrial expansion. In four chapters beginning in 1840 and ending at the beginning of the twentieth century, I juxtapose the work of contemporary artists with historical case studies. I argue that these contemporary artists &ndash; Leonardo Drew, Lubaina Himid and Yinka Shonibare &ndash; offer new interpretive frameworks for approaching the transactional and transnational contexts of nineteenth-century British, American and African American art and material culture.</p><p> Chapter one focuses on the relationship between plantations in the American South and New England, using prints, paintings and textiles that reveal the plantation and factory to be connected landscape. I trace how cotton's movement shaped constructions around place, and materialized connections between communities of labor in antebellum America. Chapter two opens with Lubaina Himid's <i> Cotton.com</i> (2002) and expands the historical relationship of plantation and factory out across the Atlantic. Centralizing Eyre Crowe's <i>Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia</i> (1861) and the export of printed cotton from Manchester, it examines the convergence of the trade in cotton with the trade in slaves. It considers how these market relations shaped the commodification of the enslaved body, British experiences of factory labor, and Manchester production of printed cloth for consumers across the globe. Chapter three begins with Leonardo Drew's <i>Number 25</i> to consider the tensions between materiality and abstraction in the production and commodification of cotton and art objects. I then examine paintings by Edgar Degas, <i> A Cotton Office in New Orleans</i> (1873), and Winslow Homer, <i> The Cotton Pickers</i>, (1876) to explore how these artists negotiated the status of cotton as a global commodity and grappled with the changing networks, of labor, production and commerce in postbellum America. Eyre Crowe's painting of factory workers in Lancashire, <i>The Dinner Hour, Wigan </i> (1874) concludes this section, which examines how the international market for cotton was influencing the representation and experience of industry in north west England. My final chapter, commencing with an installation by Yinka Shonibare MBE <i>Scramble for Africa</i> (2003), focuses on the commercial logic and visual rhetoric of three Southern international exhibitions. I examine how these exhibitions constructed the South &ndash; through visions of cotton plantations and black cotton pickers &ndash; as a space for domestic colonial expansion. Alongside this I look at the ways Africa was being constructed as a new cotton market &ndash; both as a site of cultivation and a site of consumption. In both sections I underscore how the language of commerce, colonialism and cotton shaped particular constructions of space and meanings around the African, and African American body. I conclude with the work of Meta Warrick Fuller to briefly examine how black Americans dismantled these tropes of exclusion, signified by cotton, to project claims for equality.</p><p> The project argues that the art works under examination here draw on an economic language to visualize particular ideas and constructions around labor, production and race in three ways. It traces the contours of a market-driven aesthetic in the ways cotton was used to illustrate or materialize connections to a circulating economy of goods. It describes how cotton's movement shaped the construction of imagined geographies around sites of labor and spaces of consumption. And it sketches out the speculative vision that emerged throughout the nineteenth century in the material and metaphorical associations of cotton, commerce and African American identity. In revealing the representational possibilities of cotton in this way, this dissertation looks at understudied objects to consider the nuanced ways that local cultural forms have, historically, intersected with global processes in the Atlantic world. It centralizes the experience of African Americans, within an Anglo-American culture of exchange and its relationship to a global network of trade and transmission. In doing so it seeks to reframe the ways we might approach historical processes of visuality and perception in the long nineteenth century in order to create a more global, or at least transnational, perspective on the art of this period. </p>

<p> The African American community&rsquo;s relationship with the police has historically been strained for more than a century. How that tumultuous relationship affects African American mother&rsquo;s perceptions of police and confidence in the ability for police to interact safely with their sons has not been explored thus far. It is the intention of this study to explore and offer insight into the experience of African American mothers with sons and potential police interactions. This qualitative study utilized a focus group setting to gather information. Within two weeks of the focus group 6 participants withdrew, the focus group ultimately included 6 participants. Participants voiced their need to educate their sons about police, Blackness being a risk factor, the emotional burdens of ensuring safety, strategies used to promote safety in potential police interactions, and possible solutions to strained community police relations. Participants developed strategies to increase safety by asking their sons to be compliant, stay under the radar, utilize family support, recreational and community resources. While there was a lack of confidence and mistrust of the police, participants maintained hope that with training and positive community interactions there can be improvement in safety during police interactions.</p>

<p> We expect all students to achieve and succeed in school, yet current data shows that 23.6% of African American students in Arkansas drop out of school (Bailey &amp; Dziko, 2008). The African American male high school dropouts are much higher than the number of male dropouts from other ethnic groups. As the researcher reviewed the current data about African American dropouts, it was the impetus behind this study. Although many have discussed and written about African American male dropouts in educational forums, essays, short stories, dissertations, and even movies, few have captured the experiences of the African American males in qualitative research, allowing them to have a voice.</p><p> The study focused on the African American males&rsquo; perspectives and their educational experiences during high school and how these experiences influenced their decisions to drop out of high school. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the reasons why African American males decided to drop out of high school. The researcher engaged subjects in an in depth assessment of the issues that influenced their decisions to leave high school. The researcher felt that, in order to glean a true picture of the facts as it relates to the African American dropouts, it was imperative to relate the issues to those who were affected. As we examine this dilemma, it is very important that educators understand how African American students might respond or not respond in the learning environment.</p>

<p> This project was developed to help black clergy and churches become effective in developing a place that supports families dealing with issues of Domestic Violence; since historically the black church has been a place of refuge and support for the black community and more specifically black women and children. </p><p> Chapter 1 defines Domestic Violence and states the Hypothesis, details the problem regarding the lack of an effective response by black clergy and predominately black churches regarding addressing issues related to domestic violence. Theological foundation supporting a call to action for clergy to understand that scripture speaks against violence and should not be misconstrued to justify violence in families struggling with these issues. </p><p> Chapter 2 the Literature review will focus on the problems and reasons why Black clergy and predominantly Black churches do not have a better awareness and response regarding domestic violence. The literature review will also address the significance of focusing on domestic violence in Black Churches. </p><p> Chapter 3 will explain the Methodology used to approach the subject of domestic violence with black clergy. Chapter three will further examine the project tool and the significance of having a pre-and post-survey following a Domestic violence awareness video; to achieve positive results for black clergy to bring about a difference for black churches to respond to parishioner&rsquo;s issues related to domestic violence. </p><p> Chapter 4 will affirm the hypotheses and analyze the qualitative research data collected regarding black clergy response pre-and post-survey. Chapter four will also summarize the research project and its findings. </p><p> Chapter 5 will conclude with researcher&rsquo;s final thoughts and suggestions for black clergy and churches moving forward in remaining actively involved with issues related to domestic violence.</p>