My presidential address focuses on three themes. First, I introduce and trouble the idea of literacy research as white property, drawing on my own research and the history of the Literacy Research Association (LRA) as an organization. Second, I argue that even critically oriented scholarship runs the risk of reproducing power relations it sets out…

Despite recent celebrations of diverse beauty in America, whiteness has maintained its foundation as the standard. Historic and contemporary parameters of beauty continue to play a role in not only American society in general, but in higher education. This paper examines the circumstances surrounding the crowning of two Black women as beauty…

In this study, the researcher examined student conceptions of "Whiteness" as it relates to past and present U.S. history. Using Critical Race Theory as the lens, this study employed mixed methods, analyzing teacher observations, classroom artifacts/student work, survey, and interview data from White students and students of color at an…

Barack Obama's ascension to the highest elected office in America's land is surely a milestone in the American narrative. The events of Nov. 4, 2008, and Jan. 20, 2009, are marks of America's collective progress. In the course of the long campaign season, however, there is another date that also should be etched into American textbooks: March 18,…

When the American Civil War ended, the southern aristocracy turned to sharecropping as a means for continuing its existence and for keeping former slaves in the fields. Tenant families during the economic depression of 1929 were forced to live in squalid conditions, and the natural antagonism between whites and blacks was exacerbated by the…

Identifies three forms of racism in American historiography and literature: (1) outright anti-Black bias; (2) ignorance of Black accomplishments and the Black experience; and (3) Eurocentric "universalism," a euphemism for the refusal to discuss race and the particularities of Black history and culture. Also discusses mainstream scholars'…

Significant regional differences in the proportion of white male and female children in the 19th century in different areas of the United States may be attributable to the economy. Boys were more numerous than girls in the South and along the frontier, while the ratio was more equal or in favor of girls in the eastern states. Data were obtained…

Trade and communication networks established by Indian groups in the 15th century A.D. linked the Southwest to Mesoamerica, the Plains and the Pacific littoral; these routes were later used by the Spanish and Americans, and today major highways follow ancient Indian routes. The main east-west route had major termini at Cibola (near Zuni) in the…

Any comic strip artist deals in stereotypes. The history of two black comic strips begun in the 1920s, "Bungleton Green" and "Sunny Boy Sam," both of which featured anti-heroes in the "fall guy" tradition, may be traced to show the way in which they portrayed black stereotypes. Black strips engaged in a degree of stereotyping of white characters…

In the United states, late in the twentieth century, racial separation prevails in family life, playgrounds, churches, and local community activities. Segregation of housing is a key mechanism for maintaining the subordinate status of blacks. Housing policies and practices have been a leading cause of the nation's decaying central cities and…

This paper examines the origins of the entrance of black and white Southern women into the teaching profession after the Civil War focusing on their social, familial, and racial origins; marital and childbearing status; educational preparation; and how their lives converged or diverged due to the positions they occupied in their communities as…

The origins and patterns of white presence on traditionally black public colleges and universities (TBPCU's) are considered for six distinct periods: (1) the pre-Civil War period, 1837-1859; (2) the period of the educational missionary, 1860-1885; (3) the period of reaction to white control, 1886-1916; (4) the decade of the great philanthropists,…