The purpose of this study was to explore and expose racial stereotypes of African Americans in the mass media. The research was conducted as a historical analysis using historical artifacts from as early as 1619. These historical artifacts include journal articles, books, websites, research papers, and films that are both explanation pieces and examples of black stereotypes. All of the historical artifacts were found through Internet search engines and article databases including the University of the Pacific's library database. Other materials given to pinpoint information for this study were also given by University of the Pacific professors. All of the information was examined and synthesized into this study. In order to expose and uncover past and contemporary African American stereotypes, the historical information collected for this study was organized. The results revealed three categories: (1) the initial stereotypes that blackface created, (2) the extent to which initial racial stereotypes affect today's status of African American depictions and, (3) the occurrences of blackface in today's contemporary media. This historical analysis provides a rich background to past stereotypes of African Americans as well as develops a framework for critiquing the status of black stereotypes in today's contemporary media. The analysis of the historical artifacts found that the initial depiction of blackface (one of the original forms of African American stereotypes) is not necessarily a thing of the past. In addition this study concluded that the initial stereotypes of African Americans have not only influenced the African American depictions of today but also that in many ways the portrayals are the same and just “packaged” differently.

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The school district of Philadelphia built up its security program along a very distinct pathway that was largely unrelated to any real needs protection. This program played out in two distinct phases. In the late 1950s, black and white students clashed in the neighborhoods surrounding schools over integration. Black parents called upon the city to provide community policing to protect their children in the communities surrounding schools. As the 1960s progressed and the promised civil rights gains from city liberals failed to materialize, students turned increasingly to Black Nationalist and black power ideology. When this protest activity moved inside their schoolhouses as blacks simultaneously began moving into white neighborhoods, white Philadelphians began to feel threatened in their homes and schools. As black student activism became louder and more militant, white parents called upon the police to protect their children inside the school house, as opposed to the earlier calls for community policing by black parents. White parents, the PPD, and conservative city politicians pushed the district to adopt tougher disciplinary policies to ham string this activism, to which black parents vehemently objected. The district resisted demands to police the schools through the 1960s until finally caving to political pressure in the 1970s. / History

In the wake of Emancipation, African Americans viewed land and home ownership as an essential element of their "citizenship rights." However, efforts to achieve such ownership in the postbellum era were often stymied by credit discrimination as many blacks were ensnared in a system of debt peonage. Despite such obstacles, African Americans achieved land ownership in surprising numbers in rural and urban areas in the South. At the beginning of the twentieth century, millions of African Americans began leaving the South for the North with continued aspirations of homeownership. As blacks sought to fulfill the American Dream, many financial institutions refused to provide loans to them or provided loans with onerous terms and conditions. In response, a small group of African American leaders, working in conjunction with a number of the major black churches in Philadelphia, built the largest network of race financial institutions in the United States to provide credit to black home buyers. The leaders recognized economic development through homeownership as an integral piece of the larger civil rights movement dedicated to challenging white supremacy. The race financial institutions successfully provided hundreds of mortgage loans to African Americans and were a key reason for the tripling of the black homeownership rate in Philadelphia from 1910 to 1930. During the Great Depression, the federal government revolutionized home financing with a series of programs that greatly expanded homeownership. However, the programs, such as those of the Federal Housing Administration, resulted in blacks being subjected to redlining and denied access to credit. In response, blacks were often forced to turn to alternative sources of high cost credit to finance the purchase of homes. Nevertheless, as a new wave of African American migrants arrived to Philadelphia during post-World War II era, blacks fought to purchase homes and two major race financial institutions continued to provide mortgage loans to African Americans in Philadelphia. The resolve of blacks to overcome credit discrimination to purchase homes through the creation of race financial institutions was a key part of the broader struggle for civil rights in the United States. / History