Thesis (D.W.S.)--Institute for Worship Studies, 2004. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 179-182).

The Suffering South offers a cultural history of a yellow fever epidemic that swept through the Mississippi Valley in 1878. It argues that the yellow fever narratives created during this epidemic constituted a discursive attempt by Southerners to renegotiate Southern identity and social hierarchy following the Civil War and Reconstruction. White Southerners, in particular, used the epidemic as an occasion to foster a return to a more traditional foundation of white supremacy and patriarchy as the basis for Southern identity and belonging. The narratives written by these Southerners, in which they described their experiences with yellow fever and the effects of its epidemic ravages, thereby illustrate an explicit attempt to culturally redeem the South following the successful political Redemption of the region. Using themes and stock characterizations of heroes and villains that would have been readily familiar to a generation of Southerners who had lived through the Civil War and Reconstruction, these narratives presented the idealized Southerner as white and male. In turn, they castigated non-native outsiders, racial and ethnic minorities, and women who went outside of the prescribed social norms of their race, class, or gender. These narratives also acted to justify the racial disparity in the distribution of the relief generated by the national humanitarian response to the epidemic’s incredible scope and severity. In doing so, Democratic Redeemers directed money, medical attention, and rations away from African American communities in the South as evidence of their belief that these Southerners did not deserve equal access to aid as a right of citizenship. Finally, the memory of the epidemic continues to rely on these traditional primary sources which present the experience of yellow fever in 1878 through the written memories of white Southerners. The efforts to solidify the patriarchal, white-supremacist basis for Southern identity and belonging implicit in these sources continues to effect the historical narrative presented in commemorations and official histories. Yellow fever can be understood, then, not only as a physiological disease, but as a cultural construction encompassing a set of ideas that helped to maintain hierarchies of belonging and identity in the South. This dissertation thus follows in the steps of historians who have studied epidemics and other natural disasters to illuminate social and cultural hierarchies of power. It likewise examines how relief and public health efforts reinforced those hierarchies in the epidemic’s immediate aftermath and builds on the work of memory scholars to illustrate how the collective memory of the event continues to either reinforce or challenge those hierarchies over time.

Injustice continues to be a highly discussed topic in many scholarly disciplines, including rhetoric and law. Scholars in both fields are exploring how language in legal discourse contributes to systematic inequality, discrimination, and unfairness--racial and nonracial. This rise in scholarly interest correlates with civic concern, as there have been many court cases in the last few decades that have captured public and media attention. One of these cases involved Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, two teenage boys who were convicted for murdering three 8-year-old boys. Echols and Baldwin were tried during the late 20th-century satanic panic, a well-documented social phenomenon in which many Americans found themselves jailed for crimes they did not commit. In Echols and Baldwin's case, the prosecution leaned on the rhetorical situation of the satanic panic, convicting the teenagers with hardly any physical evidence, few reliable witnesses, and little proof that either defendant knew the victims. Though the case was later overturned, no claims of prosecutorial misconduct were admitted as justification for a retrial. This thesis analyzes the prosecution's closing arguments with a focus on Burkean pentadic ratios. The prosecution successfully convicts the defendants by claiming that Echols and Baldwin killed the boys to satisfy satanic beliefs, which becomes the pentadic element "purpose." Other pentadic elements are always contained within or paired with this purpose, thus emphasizing and prioritizing the larger rhetorical situation, the ongoing satanic panic, to promote a sense of fear in the jury that ultimately leads them to convict. The thesis concludes by suggesting that courts consider the rhetorical situation outside the courtroom as well as within to protect others against similar miscarriages of justice.

No description available.

Situating the 1878 yellow fever epidemic in Memphis's long history shows how concern over Memphis's national reputation influenced how city leaders dealt with crisis. Throughout its history, Memphis government officials and business leaders promoted Memphis as a good city to do business, free from disease and racial strife. Despite their best efforts, they could not deny explosive incidents of racially-based violence or disease outbreaks. Instead, they tried to mitigate negative repercussions on the local economy during times of crisis. When the 1878 yellow fever epidemic struck, the Citizen's Relief Committee, the impromptu government formed by business leaders after outbreak, promoted Memphis as a functioning white city that was operating the best it could under terrible circumstances so the city could resume normal economic activity once the fever passed. This became the dominant narrative, repeated by newspapers across the country in 1878 and historians today. This narrative is problematic because it ignores black Memphians, who composed of 80% of the city's population after outbreak. Instead of recognizing black Memphians participation in relief activities, they promoted stories in the media about lazy or riotous African Americans to justify denying sufficient aid to the black community. Catholics had better luck earning the gratitude of Memphis's leaders. They worked with the white government and charities as nurses and fundraisers, and earned a glowing reputation in national newspapers. The inclusion of African Americans and Catholics in this thesis tells a more complete story and challenges white Memphians' carefully cultivated narrative. / Master of Arts

Thesis (D. Min.)--New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 1991. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 255-264).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Covenant Theological Seminary, 1995. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [1-11] (2nd group)).

The Mississippi River Valley, is hardly known as an earthquake zone, but may in fact be a natural disaster just waiting to happen. Historical records and paleoseismic investigations have shown that large magnitude earthquakes have occurred in the area and there are constantly microquakes all along the New Madrid Fault System. The inhabitants of the Midwest are living in a death trap so long society doesn’t preoperly prepare for earthquakes. The study presented here aims to prove that, as predicting earthquakes is difficult to the point of impossible, the only serious alternative is to reinforce existing buildings and infrastructure and make sure all new developments are seismically safe. The conclusion reached is, that although expensive, building earthquake safe and retrofitting existing buildings, is for the high risk areas by far cheaper than doing nothing when, not if, a new large magnitude earthquake occurs. For a city in the high risk area, the cost of retrofitting the current structures was 13 billion dollar to be compared with the 100 billion dollars in lost lives and properties of a worst case scenario.

No description available.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Shelby County has the fastest growing rate of HIV infection in the State of Tennessee and the majority of the people with HIV/AIDS are African Americans. 2011 CDC report stated Memphis had the fifth highest proportion of new HIV infections. The African American church is a natural and potentially powerful venue to facilitate health awareness. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the views of African American faith-based leaders (FBLs) toward offering HIV prevention services in faith-based organizations (FBOs). The theoretical framework for this study was the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). The fourth domain of CFIR, characteristics of the individuals, is concerned with organizational change which occurs on the individual level. CFIR provided a means to ensure effective implementations, data coding and analysis. Interpretative Descriptive (ID) design, which seeks to discover associations, relationships, and patterns within the described phenomenon, was used. The targeted population was African American Faith-based Leaders from areas known to have high rates of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Purposeful sampling was employed to recruit participants. Data was generated through face-to-face, semi-structured interviews. The researchers categorized and analyzed the data to form the concepts and themes identified using a coding scheme which was applied to all data. Faith-based leaders revealed that they had a role in HIV prevention. The themes that emerged were their role to provide education on HIV, minister with compassion, teach Biblical doctrine, maintain a community focus, and partner with expert healthcare professionals. Perceived barrier concepts identified were lack of knowledge, denial, stigma, fear, keeping issues private, and the breakdown of family and community values. Findings suggest that FBLs had some knowledge of the health disparities and ongoing stigma concerning HIV remains a major barrier. The participants interviewed were open to HIV preventions on different levels to address HIV but needed more education.