Doctor Of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Farrell J. Webb / The purpose of this study was to examine the factors that influenced African American pastor’s perceptions of mental health issues and to explore how those perceptions influenced the propensity of the pastor to counsel, consult, and or refer to mental health professionals. This study is divided into two parts. Part one examines the perceptions of the pastors and their beliefs about mental health. Part two concretized these perceptions by employing the Contextual Model of Family Stress as a guide for structuring the relationships between a pastor’s perception and their attitudes toward mental health issues. Data for this investigation were gathered from a sub-sample of African American pastors originally generated from a listing of churches throughout the country. Initially 300 locally based institutions were identified. A survey was mailed to the churches explaining the purpose and goals of the study. Nearly one-third of the pastors completed the sixty-one item questionnaire. Of those who returned the original questionnaires (102), nearly three-quarters were from African American pastors (73) all of whom were included in this study. There were four hypotheses developed for this exploratory investigation: they examined the pastor’s propensity to make mental health referrals; the tendency to spiritualize mental health issues; pastor’s lack of support for congregants with mental health problems; and the influence of mental health training on the willingness to refer to mental health professionals. None of the hypotheses were directly supported. The application and adaptation of the Contextual Model of Family Stress to how African American pastors perceived, utilized, and responded to mental health issues was explored via path analysis. Overall, the final model explained 39% of the variance in why pastors chose to make referrals to mental health professionals. The findings suggested that the African American pastors are concerned with the mental health of their congregants. Moreover, these pastors exhibited uncommon knowledge about mental health and displayed greater willingness to work with mental health professionals than originally believed. These findings reveal that African American pastors are in touch with their congregants on multiple plains—spiritual, soul, and body—three vital dimensions, according to church doctrines and beliefs.

Master of Science / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Anthony Jurich / Adolescent pregnancy has been an ongoing concern in society for many years. This concern is even greater among the African American community. Girls who experience a pregnancy or childbirth during adolescence often experience difficulties in school and future careers, as well as financial and mental instability. This report will examine how the pregnancy and childbirth experiences of African American teens influence their younger female siblings.

I analyze the historical and cultural processes by which American racism is reproduced, approaching the issue through the lens of "imagined voodoo" (as distinct from Haitian Vodou). I posit that the American Marine occupation of Haiti (1915-34) was crucial in shaping the American racial imaginary. In film, television, and literature, imagined voodoo continues to serve as an outlet for white racist anxieties. Because it is usually found in low-brow entertainment (like horror) and rarely mentions race explicitly, voodoo is able to evade critique, disseminating racism within a culture that is now largely--albeit superficially--intolerant of overt racism. / African and African American Studies

This is an investigation into the ways that postmodern theories and feminist theories have both failed to learn from each other and yet also reveal the blindness' implicit in each other. Postmodern theory has consistently failed to engage gender in any significant way and feminist theory has consisted failed to find the usefulness of the methods and questions posed by postmodern theorists. Both approaches have failed to address the very real and important perspectives of the post colonial others who have been addressing the questions of race, gender, history, and agency for hundred of years. The second half of this investigation looks specifically at the work of three African American women writers, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor and Gayle Jones, in their most recent work. All three novels, Beloved, Mama Day and Corregidora are historical novels concerned with the legacy of slavery, and these narratives themselves exceed all the expectation for postmodern theory and feminist theory in inviting us to understand the relationship between history, memory and the now. In effect the work of these writers succeeds in "theorizing the present" in ways that both feminism and postmodernism fail.

This dissertation examines how contemporary African American women writers have used the novel of selfhood to represent African American girls' and women's struggle to achieve self-understanding and development during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. In doing so, this dissertation expounds on the ways in which race, class, gender, sexuality, social justice movements, and community affect African American female characters' journey toward selfhood. Through this study I am interested in exploring the messages African American communities communicate to girls and women about life, race, gender, and sexuality. How characters interpret this information and then negotiate between their individual desires and goals and the expectations of their communities, as well as the effect learning about African American or African Diaspora history and culture has on protagonists are also central concerns here. The novels analyzed in this study are Alice Walker's Meridian (1976), Ntozake Shange's Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo (1982), and Toni Morrison's Love (2003). Drawing upon male, female, and African American Bildungsroman scholarship, Civil Rights and Black Power ideology, and black feminist theoretical frameworks, this study offers an interdisciplinary close textual analysis of African American women's novels of selfhood depicting several models of self-development to illuminate the struggles African American women face in their journey toward selfhood. This dissertation diverges from previous scholarship in that it places greater emphasis on the role of community and explores the influence the social justice movements of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, specifically the Civil Rights, Black Power/Black Arts, and Women's liberation movements had on African American women's self-concept.

Internalized racism is a contributing factor to the inability of African Americans to overcome racism. (Speight, 2007) Because this is a cognitive phenomenon over which individuals can have agency, it is important to study, understand, and seek out ways that African Americans are able to gain a liberatory perspective in the midst of a racist society. By using colonization psychology and post-traumatic slave psychology to define the phenomenon, and Jackson's Black identity development model theory to ground and analyze participants' process of liberation, this study used phenomenological in-depth interviewing to understand the experiences of African American and Black women who have gained more consciousness of their internalized racism. The researcher interviewed 11 U.S. Born African American and Black women for an hour and a half to gain their understanding of internalized racism and liberation. The study found that Black and African American women in a process of liberation (1) move from experiencing lack of control to an experience of having agency; (2) gain agency from developing greater knowledge and pride of a positive black identity; (3) replace negative socialization with a knowledge of self; and 4) are supported in their liberation by a systemic analysis of racism. The study also found that (1) internalized racism and liberation are complexly defined phenomena, (2) participants continued to practice manifestations of internalized racism while practicing a liberatory consciousness, which confirms the theories of the cyclical nature of identity, and (3) racial identity development models offer a framework for understanding a transition from internalized racism towards liberation but lack clarity about how transformation actually occurs.

"Journey Toward A Black Aesthetic" is a study of the activist and cultural work of Hoyt W. Fuller and the formation of the Black intellectual community in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. It fills a major gap in Black Arts Movement Studies by exploring the public work of Fuller and the (inter)national sensibilities he helped to arouse among Black intellectuals, artists and activists. Much like the position granted to Alain Locke by scholars of the Harlem Renaissance, this study situates Hoyt Fuller as the "midwife" or "dean" of the Black Arts Movement. One of the central aspects of "Journey Toward A Black Aesthetic" is the way the project explores the various networks Fuller developed at the local, national and international levels. The project traces Fuller's role as editor of Negro Digest (Black World) and First World. It also examines the key part he played as a founder of the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) in Chicago, and unpacks his position as an unofficial ambassador in several African festivals. The project is based upon extensive archival research, oral history interviews, local periodicals and Black Arts literature. It is an attempt to lobby for an altered view of the movement from the perspective of Hoyt Fuller. As a gay black man, respected elder, engaged activist, leading editor, and passionate advocate for Black writers, Fuller's public work offers us a unique perspective on the 1960s. In sum, this study of his activism will help complement, contradict, and in some instances, transform our understanding of the Black Arts Movement, and the Black intellectual community that was formed in its wake.

For approximately the last 20 years, researchers have studied the “environment” for students who are lesbian, gay, and bisexual. However, there has been little empirical research on the experiences of lesbian, bisexual, or gay students at historically Black colleges and universities. Most of the literature to date has focused on students at predominantly White institutions and students who are male. Further, HBCUs have longbeen lauded for the unique educational experience they have created for African American students in general as evidenced by reports of greater satisfaction, faculty and social support, positive self-images, strong racial pride, and better psychosocial adjustment (Allen, Epps, & Haniff, 1991; Berger & Milem, 2000; Fleming, 1984; Fries-Britt & Turner, 2002; Terenzini, Bohr, Pascarella, & Nora, 1997). However, little research has been conducted on within-group differences among African American students at HBCUs to explore whether and how other social identities such as sexual orientation or socioeconomic class impact an African American student’s experience of an HBCU. This is an exploratory study that examines the experiences of seven lesbian and bisexual female students at an historically Black college and inquires into the relationship between the culture of HBCUs and the students’ perceptions of campus climate. Drawing from a focus group interview, a survey, institutional artifacts, and historical data, I explore three research questions. The questions are (1) what can be characterized as the culture at historically Black colleges and universities; (2) what is the lesbian and bisexual female student perception of the campus climate for lesbian and female bisexual students at HBCUs and; (3) how, if at all does the HBCU culture impact the campus climate? The culture was characterized by adherence to traditional gender norms of dress and behavior, affirming racial identity but not sexual identity, the dominance and prevalence of Christian values and beliefs, and a system of rewards and punishments for conforming or not conforming to gender norms. The climate was characterized by students feeling afraid; being harassed; feeling as though they are not wanted at the institution; restricting themselves from participating in activities; facing threats of expulsion; and having little to no social or institutional support.

In his 1962 essay "The Creative Process," James Baldwin begins by stating, "Perhaps the primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone." By the 1960s, Baldwin knew all-too-well the state of black male subjectivity in an America fraught with social disharmony. His musings highlight that while the struggles of black manhood can be reduced to discussions of race, class, and/or sexuality, its fate is primarily governed by a subtler phenomenon, namely—this "state of being alone." Baldwin's consideration is a sort of self-dichotomization, as he is at once both artist and man, and while suggesting that the artist must cultivate "loneliness," he also recognizes the necessity for its avoidance. In this regard, James Baldwin as writer emerges as a critical recourse for James Baldwin as man, becomes the medium through which he, through himself and for himself, reaches a particular end. This project examines the male emotion and vulnerability in the novels of James Baldwin. Within his novels, from Go Tell it on the Mountain to Just Above My Head, James Baldwin foregrounds male relationships in a way that exposes fraternal crises. This fraternal crisis, in one vein, points to this project as a theory of space, as it denotes an absence of male intimacy, a state of being where distance, disconnect, unwillingness and fear shape a symbolic space-in-between men. In another sense, it reflects how Baldwin's preoccupation with the state of being alone leads to his fictional pursuit of the fraternal, a metaphysical construction of spatial manhood detectable by intimacy: the vulnerable, emotional and physical closeness of men. Essentially, the search for the fraternal in Baldwin's fiction captures black manhood's cry for male intimacy in a world of isolation, rejection, and oppression while marking the redemptive power of male love through the emergence of salvific manhood.

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