The Black Church is the oldest anti-racist institution in America. Having educated generations of Black families, birthed schools, universities, hospitals, financial institutions, various music genres, and nurtured numerous advocates and martyrs for freedom, including access to literacy, it is directly responsible for many of the most significant…

As contexts in schools and higher education become increasingly more diverse, engagement with human differences and different knowledges becomes essential. Institutions need to change their practices to respond to the different needs of learners, as well as valuing their knowledges and prospective teachers need to better equipped for these…

The role of music in Grenada, West Indies has traditionally been to pass on knowledges, values, and ideals; and to provide a means of connecting to one another through expressing commonality of experience, ancestry, and nationhood. This paper explores how Eric Matthew Gairy, during his era of political leadership in Grenada (1951-1979), exploited…

This study was conducted to investigate the academic experiences of selected African American women faculty and administrators employed by two-year and four-year predominantly white institutions. The sample selection was purposeful, and three faculty members and two administrators agreed to participate. Each participant was interviewed on five…

Through the narratives of North American slaves a vivid picture of their lives, struggles, hopes, and aspirations emerges. The slave narrative arose as a response to, and a refutation of, claims that blacks could not write. Slave writings were often direct extensions of speech. Through a process of imitation and repetition, the black slave's…

For a composition teacher--comparing a passage from his Caucasian grandmother's (May Blossom Gould's) diary with the autobiographical narrative dictated by an African-American student's great-great grandmother (Violet McNeil) to a literate member of her family--racial politics and the privileges afforded by literacy irrevocably separate the two…

Code-switching is examined in oral narratives of 30 African-American women as they switched from Standard English to Black English Vernacular. A little over half of the speakers assign positive values to their code switches. Examples are given from interviews with two subjects. (SLD)

Arguing that first-person narratives can illustrate communication theories and concepts found throughout basic communication course texts and can serve as first-person examples of the effects of racism and stereotyping, this paper summarizes two "powerful and engaging" texts that illustrate the standpoint of African-Americans in the…

Literacy is inextricably linked to the social context in which literacy is taught, and in which the language is used. Cultural expectations require the use of specific literacies. Who a person is, in terms of a literacy user and a literacy worker are dictated by the culture in which a person chooses to operate. Literacy is not neutral, but an…

While a great deal of discussion has been generated regarding increased levels of student diversity, recruitment of minority faculty, and the diversification of college curricula, there has been far less written about the impact of white institutions on the psyches of ethnic minority faculty. This paper discloses one African-American female…

Narratives exist within the African cultural ethos then and now in a variety of contexts. For African Americans, one function of the narrative has been the therapeutic effect of ameliorating oppression. Current literature on narrative therapy provides a foundation for discussing the healing power of narratives in the African American community.…

In the 1950's, Charles S. Johnson, the first black president of Fisk University (Tennessee), greatly expanded the institution's international program, attracting many foreign students to the school and creating a milieu that gave American blacks the benefits of integration. This paper examines how the presence of outsiders and outside influences…

This paper is based on open-ended group interviews with 11 graduate students of color who had tried and rejected other occupations (such as journalism, marketing, nutrition, social work, youth counseling, secretarial work, waitressing, fashion merchandising, theater, medical claims examiner, and public relations) for teaching. The study examined:…

This study determined the role of self-efficacy on women's selection of math-related careers. Unlike a similar study conducted by Zeldin and Pajares (2000), this study included African-American women. It centered on Banduras (1986, 1987) four sources for self-efficacy perceptions (mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasions, and…