The "revolutionary" racial moderation of the 1890's Populist movement in Georgia has especially been a subject of fascination for historians since C. Vann Woodward, in Tom Watson . Agrarian Rebel (1938), sent out this message in portraying Populism's successes in implementing an un precedented degree of political harmony between Black and white rural masses in Georgia. But except for explaining Georgia Populism's racial rapprochement in terms of its expediency, historians have not expounded at length on the reasons for Populism's apparent deviation from the pattern of racial hostility which characterized post-Reconstruction Democratic ("solid South") politics. Using one case example, Pike county, this thesis, however, attempts to explain the racial tolerance of Populism in Pike county in an economic as well as a political context, emphasizing also the peculiar social milieu in which the Populist movement occurred in this Georgia county. Through the historic perspective it will be seen that Populism's racial tolerance in Pike had a dramatic precedent in an even more racially 2 tolerant revolt against the county Democratic party in the earlier 1880's period—namely, the Pike area's focal prohibition independent party move ment. But in addition to identifying specific precedents of racial tol erance such as the Pike area 1880's prohibition movement, this thesis attempts to explain Populism's racial mores in Pike county, Georgia as one aspect of the climactic era which closed a tumultous post-slave post war era. And in this respect, the thesis attempts to briefly chronicle the story of a generation--Georgia's war-devastated generation. It is the theory of this essay that this generation was like none other in the history of the South; it was accustomed to killing and brutality, fear and hunger. It was a generation transformed by suffering and violence and crime. And in Pike, and probably much of Georgia, this generation was transformed to some degree by the dark force of addictive hard drugs. And having this "off-balance" personality, this post-war generation in Pike county and Georgia was faced with the pressure of living espe cially in the 1890's continuously on the edge of economic collapse. And in Pike another mind-shattering pressure faced the people in the heart breaking Nineties period—namely, natural disasters in the form of dev astating cyclones, blizzards, crop failures, and an earthquake. In the face of impossible economic conditions, it will be seen that this people looked for survival especially to religion and radical, violent, Populistcentered politics. In addition this thesis is a study of a newspaper's view of race and of an era. For it is through the Pike County Journal, the official county newspaper that the racial tolerance in Pike Populism is seen to 3 be part of a current flowing in this post-Reconstruction rural society. And it is through the Pike County Journal, and to a lesser degree through the official newspaper of adjoining Spalding county, the Griffin Daily News, that the reader is alerted to the fact that the racial barrier in Pike county during the 1890's was less destructive to the quality of life in this Southern society than city-bred and Northern historians might have realized. Also the Griffin News, which started in the Nineties to reflect profound racial hostility and other naissant twentieth century trends, is used as a foil to highlight the racial tolerance of the news paper printed at Zebulon some ten miles up the road from Griffin, the Pike County Journal. And finally this thesis is the story of a generation of Pike county Blacks, which like Blacks throughout the South, was facing the supreme test of their freedom by the last decade of the nineteenth century. And although the Pike Blacks were nevertheless active in the county Populist movement, it will be seen that unlike the liberal precursor prohibition party movement, the Pike Populist movement restricted Blacks' partici pation and segregated them. But during this era of more restricted Black involvement in political revolt, it will be seen that Black dissent—or the "spirit of Populist revolt"—spilled over into a sphere to which Blacks' efforts to secure their freedom would be largely relegated in the dawning 'jim crow' twentieth century—namely, public education.

The race riot that occurred in Atlanta, Georgia on September 22, 1906, is considered to be one of the worst riots to have ever happen in the South before World War I. The purpose of this study is to examine the social, political, and economic aspects of the city's Black community before and after the riot, and to show that Blacks were determined to build a strong society despite segregation. In addition to this, the paper will examine the events that occurred during the riot and discuss the interracial cooperation committees that were created immediately following the uprising to improve race relations in the city. The reactions of local and national Black leaders to the riot will also be explored. The primary sources used for this study were the Black and white newspapers of the period: Atlanta Independent; Savannah Tribune; New York Age: Washington Bee; Baltimore Afro-American; Atlanta Constitution; Atlanta Journal: Atlanta News; and New York Times. City Council Minutes, city ordinances, and other government documents were used for additional information. Also used in this study are numerous secondary sources such as books, articles, pamphlets, theses, dissertations, maps, and illustrations.

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The study sees autobiography as a "gateway" to understanding a people's culture and is premised on the assumption that Afro-American life and experience is different from that of Whites or any other group living in the United States of America. It utilizes the autobiographies of six Black Americans, who in their own· right can be considered men of letters, in an attempt to understand what life has been like for Blacks in America. It discusses Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave Written by Himself, W. E. B. Du Bois's Dusk of Dawn, An Essay Toward An Autobiography of Race Concept, James Weldon Johnson's Along This Way, The Autobiograpy of James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes's The Big Sea, Zora Neale Hurston's Dust Tracks on a Road and Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. As a group, these authors share certain special concerns that are a result of their collective racial history. First, they all exemplify the ability of Blacks to overcome hardship: they prove the fact that Blacks, like other races, are multi-talented and can successfully do more than one thing, even in a time of under-education. All of these autobiographers share a belief that acquiring an education and that the teaching profession in particular are an important means of uplifting the race. They believe in being actively involved in the affairs of their communities and make a serious attempt to define Black American. life and experiences in the context of all Blacks, in the West Indies as well as Africa. Finally, they all express a Black consciousness which has been an example from which Blacks have continued to draw. At the center of their struggles is the need for freedom. For Frederick Douglass, freedom is conceived as the result of one's determined fight to help end slavery, believing that once this is achieved Black men and women will enter into a full and equal partnership with White America. When complete victory is not forthcoming, Douglass sees freedom as lying in one's' migration to the North. Du Bois and Johnson conceive freedom as a result of Blacks attempting to understand one another within the Black communities and of organizing to force the White world to see that Blacks are not base animals but a people with a rich cultural heritage and, indeed, capable of producing a variety of creative art forms. For Hughes, Hurston and Angelou freedom is seen as the desire to be simply themselves. To this effect the latter three autobiographers are not so concerned with race uplift as they are concerned with the need to reveal the race to itself~ they reveal some devices by which Blacks are able to pick up their lives in spite of the overwhelming odds they must confront daily. The institutions of school, church, and family are emphasized as central to the life of Blacks. Education is often seen as the key by which both the race and the individual can advance the church. The church on the other hand, holds a special place in the Black communities because it feeds on the Black people's optimism that nothing is really forever and ifretrievably lost, and the promise of a life after death is in accordance with the general tendency among Blacks to reject hopelessness. The sense of family, especially the network of relationships known as the extended family, is upheld and emphasized despite having suffered severely during the slave period. The study concludes that freedom, identity or personhood for Blacks is a product of a great deal of struggle, and is attained only when Blacks are able to confront life on their own terms and avoid escaping into a world of fantasy, and for the women especially, this demands that they reject or ignore the White standards of beauty.

This research evaluated the impact Clark Atlanta University's (CAU) Sexual Health Peer Education (SHPE) program has on black college women's sexual health knowledge, attitudes and beliefs towards sexuality, sexual behaviors, and sexual health. In addition, this research explores the strategies used by Clark Atlanta University's SHPE program, Health Promoters Educating and Encouraging Responsible Students (HPEERS). This research was based on the premise that multiple factors contribute to the efficacy of the transmission of sexual health education such as social determinants, cultural competency, use of statistics, and location. In the United States, African- American women account for 60% of the cases of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HTV) of women. Many researchers have focused on the high rates of HIV among African-American women. However, this research focused exclusively on black college women at CAU. This research consisted of a mixed method, including a critical program evaluation and participant observation that involved SHPE and black college women students attending CAU. The researcher found that the majority of the black college women who attended an event sponsored by H-PEERS reported it to have effectively impacted their overall sexual health. The researcher concludes that the strategies used by H-PEERS are effective, but the organization must develop strategies that are inclusive to all sexual identities represented at CAU. The researcher recommends further research focusing on other populations represented at the university including black male and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students.

This study examines gender (re)presentation in three carefully selected works: Brown Girl, Brownstones; The Color Purple; and When Rocks Dance. Employing the scholarship of women writers of the Diaspora, I contend that the works dismantle and (re)construct gender identities. Where traditional notions of sexuality depict men as masculine and women as feminine, this analysis interrogates and subverts the traditional paradigm. Methodologically, the dissertation combines literary analysis, post-colonial studies, and gender schema theory into an interdisciplinary approach. I begin by exploring gender construction to establish a theoretical perspective for characters who reject traditional heteronormative paradigms. I then extend recent critical discussions on gender and post-colonialism by examining the relationships between the men and women in each literary text. I contend that traditional notion of characters as homosexual or lesbian is dismantled and (re)constructed, thereby resulting in characters who embrace their femininity or masculinity in a more balanced construction of personality, which is the key to their self-actualization.

This study investigated the impact of rural, one-room, African-American schools on the educational experiences and racial consciousness of African-American children and adults in two Hardin County, Kentucky communities during the period of segregation. Objectives of the study were: (1) to identify one-room school educational activities. (2) to identify expressions of African Consciousness and characteristics (concept included characteristics of African Identity and Culture) that enabled African-American children to develop survival skills required for life in America, and (3) to identify the communal and cultural activities that supported the one-room school children. The researcher found evidence that African Consciousness and African identity and culture were apparent in school and community activities. The rural citizens were aware of their black identity and they shared information about the positive accomplishments of black people with each other. Traditions, practices, and customs that affirmed worth, dignity and integrity were passed on in the communities; furthermore, they helped each other learn the traditions. Racial oppression was resisted in the communities. Cultural activities were provided by the schools and the communities in mutually beneficial endeavors. Exploration of the education provided to rural African Americans before the Brown decision was significant for several reasons. First, it allowed an examination of an under-researched segment of the American educational system. Second, African Americans, including the researcher, who were part of the segregated educational system were able to give their own descriptions and interpretations of their educational experiences. Third, positive interactions and supports that promoted student survival in the segregated system were identified.

The literary works in this study: Frances E. W. Harper’s lola Leroy, Nella Larsens’ Quicksand, and Zora Neale Hurston’ s Their Eyes Were Watching God provide examples of female protagonists facing identity crises and reaching milestones in their lives as a result of theirjourneys towards self-actualization. The protagonists’ lives (childhood, adolescence, and adulthood/womanhood/motherhood) are traced during times of slavery, the antebellum period, the post-bellum period, and the Harlem Renaissance. Their experiences in each stage of life in relation to societal norms present the identity crisis present in each novel. In an attempt to define feminine identity as portrayed by the protagonists in the novels, I examined past ideals of femininity in American and African American history and literature. Additionally, a definition of femininity based upon the early works is contrasted with a definition of identity in the later works of African American female authors. Based upon the two perspectives of how the female characters discovered thei identities, the female characters of later novels prove to be direct descendents of early female characters in African American literature. As the study demonstrates, the characteristics of African American female protagonists’ of strength, resilience, confidence, and, eventually, independence are progressive in these novels which results in characters that develop positively over a period of more than seventy years. The study also suggests that the portrayal of femal protagonists in the novels of African-American women continues to be patterned after the early novelists and, at the same time, continues to progress in strength and development.

This study conducted in Atlanta, Georgia examines the knowledge of HIV transmission and sexual behavior among Zimbabwean adolescent females. A total of 30 adolescents were interviewed using qualitative techniques. This study utilized the Social Cognitive Theory as the theoretical framework in that it maintains that behavior is largely regulated antecedently through cognitive processes. This study also employed Self-efficacy Theory, which is concerned with people’s beliefs in their capabilities to perform courses of action to attain a desired outcome. Awareness of risk perceptions helps young people to learn to see actions as causes of events and believe in the changeability of heath risks and risky habits. The researcher found that a majority of the adolescents had a high level of knowledge of HIV transmission. Although adolescents’ knowledge of condom use is relatively high, their usage lags far behind. The conclusions drawn from the findings suggest that adolescents are aware of HIV transmission, but are not applying their knowledge in practice. There is a gap between knowledge and action. Therefore, there is need to promote healthy sexual behavior. Effective educational programs that promote critical thinking, decision-making and skills that support the adoption of healthy behavio rs and the reduction of high-risk behaviors are necessary.