The current trend among conservative politicians to erase Black history and ban books by Black authors from public schools and libraries in states like Florida and Texas is the latest in a long history of assaults on the civil rights and education of Black people. Laws like Florida's Individual Freedom Act, (H.R. 7/S.B. 148, 2022), commonly known…

What has it meant to produce knowledge and to teach at the intersection of English literature and Black Studies? This dissertation asks after the history and function of Black literary studies as it emerged as an academic discipline in the late 20th century U.S. academy. I propose that Black literary studies' institutional knowledge project is…

More than 40 years ago, Hicks and Ridley (1979) asserted the need for Black Studies in psychology across American colleges and universities. Their study is one of few, if not the only, that has examined the frequency and types of course offerings in Black Psychology. Thus, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the current state of Black…

While Huey P. Newton has his place in the history books as an outspoken activist and co-founder of the Black Panther Party (BPP), a critical aspect of his life's work is missing from his well-known story. In addition to being remembered for his confrontations with the police, Newton should be known as an educator because that is how he saw…

The literature on Black Studies, Afro-Brazilian Studies and Comparative Race Relations between Brazil and the United States has been dedicated to the study of Black activism and education. However, there is a gap in comparative studies focused on Black Studies units in the United States and Afro-Brazilian studies in Brazil. The dissertation…

"Studying history will sometimes Disturb you. Studying history will sometimes Upset you. Studying history will sometimes make you Furious. But if studying history always makes you feel proud and happy, you probably aren't studying History." Author Unknown. This study occurred during a period of increased social awareness of antiracism,…

The current political trends to ban the teaching of race and racism in public schools, to eliminate Advanced Placement African American Studies classes, and to whitewash U.S. history standards, maintain hegemonic discourses, while simultaneously devaluing the teaching of Black histories and sanitizing the legacy of race and racism in U.S. society.…

This study explores how libraries mediated interactions between black readers and texts in twentieth century South Africa. By situating libraries as vital infrastructures of reading, I critically examine how librarians tried to build the habit of reading within black communities. Beginning in the 1930s with the Carnegie Corporation of New York's…

This dissertation explored the lived experiences of eight Black Student Activist Scholars on the campus of a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). Through the use of Critical Race Theory, and Sociopolitical Development, it was discovered that Black students understand their activist and civic engagement to be that of a "duty of…

The purpose for conducting the study was to examine the factors that motivate African-American first-generation students to pursue doctoral education at a four-year public university. There has been little research on the influence academic or nonacademic factors have on first-generation graduate student motivation. Similarly, little research…

Thomas Kuhn's 1962 groundbreaking work, "The Scientific Revolution," established the process for creating, and the components of, a disciplinary paradigm. This "scientific revolution" has evolved to become the standard for determining a field's claim to disciplinary status. In 2001 and 2003, Ama Mazama, used Kuhn's model to establish the…

A growing number of researchers claim that web-based communication tools, such as weblogs (blogs for short), have the potential to transform teaching and learning in schools across grade levels. Yet, much of this research lacks evidence of what instructors and students are actually doing with the technology, including the circumstances under which…

W.E.B. Du Bois offered an educational theory that sought to contextualize the role of schools and their relevance to social justice. Responding to the social-historical malaise of African American subordination, he proposed that schools could provide the impetus towards cultural, economic, and political empowerment. Moreover, his theory of…

African-American male students are systematically forced to confine themselves to the social construct that European-American society has developed for them. Actions, behaviors, and words that communicate this message spread both interracially and intraracially within schools and affect African-American males tremendously in terms of their…

This study examines the practices and roles that influence the participation or nonparticipation of teacher leaders of color in taking on additional leadership roles. The concern is that there are certain practices or roles, which hinder or support teachers of color aspiring to roles of leadership. Taking on these roles could advance occupants to…