Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.08
Brian B. Johnson
ABSTRACT:Dr. Nathan Hare's pioneering research on Black families changed the trajectory of academia and blazed trails within higher education regarding the study of Black families and the Black child. Hare researched the state of Black families by addressing racial misconceptions and posing strategies to empower Black families and society. His 1991 book, written with Dr. Julia Hare and titled The Miseducation of the Black Child, addressed racial stereotypes and misunderstandings about Black families that impeded advancement, then included a detailed plan, the Hare Plan, that provided recommendations for improving the educational inequities and overall well-being of Black families and children. The plan first addressed educational and social inequities within the public-school system, then explained how society and the community at large carried a responsibility for improving the state of Black families; particularly the Black male child. Thirty years later, the Black male remains under societal attack, and the recommendations provided by the Hare Plan remain relevant and are in need of being revisited. African American males continue to face disparities within the educational system, continue to be misjudged and misunderstood, and disparities in the justice system continue to threaten the welfare of Black families overall. This purpose of this paper is to evaluate issues highlighted in The Miseducation of the Black Child and specifically the Hare Plan to assess the state of Dr. Hare's recommendations 30 years later.
{"title":"The State of Black America: Reassessing the Hare Plan 30 Years Later","authors":"Brian B. Johnson","doi":"10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.08","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Dr. Nathan Hare's pioneering research on Black families changed the trajectory of academia and blazed trails within higher education regarding the study of Black families and the Black child. Hare researched the state of Black families by addressing racial misconceptions and posing strategies to empower Black families and society. His 1991 book, written with Dr. Julia Hare and titled The Miseducation of the Black Child, addressed racial stereotypes and misunderstandings about Black families that impeded advancement, then included a detailed plan, the Hare Plan, that provided recommendations for improving the educational inequities and overall well-being of Black families and children. The plan first addressed educational and social inequities within the public-school system, then explained how society and the community at large carried a responsibility for improving the state of Black families; particularly the Black male child. Thirty years later, the Black male remains under societal attack, and the recommendations provided by the Hare Plan remain relevant and are in need of being revisited. African American males continue to face disparities within the educational system, continue to be misjudged and misunderstood, and disparities in the justice system continue to threaten the welfare of Black families overall. This purpose of this paper is to evaluate issues highlighted in The Miseducation of the Black Child and specifically the Hare Plan to assess the state of Dr. Hare's recommendations 30 years later.","PeriodicalId":204420,"journal":{"name":"Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114341370","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.11
Amy E. Steele
ABSTRACT:Mystic and philosopher of religion Howard W. Thurman interrogates the meaning of religious experience throughout the 20th century. His book Deep River and the Negro Speaks of Life and Death (Thurman, 1975) reveals that to understand Black mystical experience is to consider the song tradition of the enslaved. In his research he finds, what I call, a Black mystical aesthetic. He extends this Black mystical aesthetic to understand and narrate his own experiences with mysticism. This essay explores more fully the roots of this mystical ethical orientation and its moral, aesthetic, and democratic tendencies. Thurman's Black mystical aesthetic was mediated out of ordinary experience to limn suffering in order to rehumanize it.
{"title":"Howard Thurman and the Roots of a Black Mystical Aesthetic","authors":"Amy E. Steele","doi":"10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.11","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Mystic and philosopher of religion Howard W. Thurman interrogates the meaning of religious experience throughout the 20th century. His book Deep River and the Negro Speaks of Life and Death (Thurman, 1975) reveals that to understand Black mystical experience is to consider the song tradition of the enslaved. In his research he finds, what I call, a Black mystical aesthetic. He extends this Black mystical aesthetic to understand and narrate his own experiences with mysticism. This essay explores more fully the roots of this mystical ethical orientation and its moral, aesthetic, and democratic tendencies. Thurman's Black mystical aesthetic was mediated out of ordinary experience to limn suffering in order to rehumanize it.","PeriodicalId":204420,"journal":{"name":"Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men","volume":"359 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122754725","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.16
J. Jeffries
{"title":"Eugene Dudley, PhD: 3rd District","authors":"J. Jeffries","doi":"10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.16","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":204420,"journal":{"name":"Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130175121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.20
J. Jeffries
{"title":"Greg Pritchett, PhD: 7th District","authors":"J. Jeffries","doi":"10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.20","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":204420,"journal":{"name":"Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127332702","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.13
Stewart Habig
ABSTRACT:This article explores Melvin Tolson's jazz aesthetics and argues that Tolson's poetics emphasize rhythmic and linguistic syncopation to celebrate African and African American contributions to American history and culture in his poem Harlem Gallery. For Tolson, the story of Black America is the story of America, and he unapologetically appropriates the epic form to establish the foundational impact of jazz, blues, and other Black cultural elements on American literary discourse. His work integrates modernist techniques, cultural allusions, and linguistic signifiers to transcend critical attitudes that compartmentalize work by poets of color, and in this article readings of Tolson's poems, essays, and unpublished archival notes complicate understandings of Tolson's relationship to critics. Several passages from Harlem Gallery are discussed to demonstrate Tolson's development of a jazz aesthetic that effectively incorporates elements like the break, polyvocality, encoded language, and performative duality. Tolson's poetry ultimately works to flatten arbitrary aesthetic hierarchies, and he presents a jazz-infused democratic approach to culture and art that celebrates inclusion and difference.
{"title":"Curating the Jazz Aesthetics in Melvin B. Tolson's Harlem Gallery","authors":"Stewart Habig","doi":"10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.13","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article explores Melvin Tolson's jazz aesthetics and argues that Tolson's poetics emphasize rhythmic and linguistic syncopation to celebrate African and African American contributions to American history and culture in his poem Harlem Gallery. For Tolson, the story of Black America is the story of America, and he unapologetically appropriates the epic form to establish the foundational impact of jazz, blues, and other Black cultural elements on American literary discourse. His work integrates modernist techniques, cultural allusions, and linguistic signifiers to transcend critical attitudes that compartmentalize work by poets of color, and in this article readings of Tolson's poems, essays, and unpublished archival notes complicate understandings of Tolson's relationship to critics. Several passages from Harlem Gallery are discussed to demonstrate Tolson's development of a jazz aesthetic that effectively incorporates elements like the break, polyvocality, encoded language, and performative duality. Tolson's poetry ultimately works to flatten arbitrary aesthetic hierarchies, and he presents a jazz-infused democratic approach to culture and art that celebrates inclusion and difference.","PeriodicalId":204420,"journal":{"name":"Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130821312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.23
K. Brooks
{"title":"Fred R. Porter: 10th District","authors":"K. Brooks","doi":"10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.23","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.23","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":204420,"journal":{"name":"Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121971954","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.21
J. Jeffries
{"title":"Lynn L. Beckwith, EdD: 8th District","authors":"J. Jeffries","doi":"10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.21","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.21","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":204420,"journal":{"name":"Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127820043","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.04
David A. Varel
ABSTRACT:Allison Davis (1902–1983) was one of the premier African American intellectuals of his generation. Having inherited a world dominated by the color line yet privileged enough to attend the most elite universities in the United States, Davis dedicated his life to social science. At turns an anthropologist, sociologist, psychologist, psychoanalyst, and educationalist, Davis spent his career com-batting race and class inequalities within an academy dominated by White men. He personally broke barriers by becoming the first African American to earn tenure at a predominantly White university, and his research was no less path breaking. It pushed the theoretical boundaries of multiples disciplines and influenced policymakers and activists alike. Through works such as Deep South (1941), Children of Bondage (1940), the Social-Class Influences upon Education (1948), and many other publications, Davis had a significant impact on American intellectual life—one that endures to this day. This essay explains Davis's contributions while also critically assessing the limitations of his body of work, including the top-down model of social change he represented and the marginalization of women and gender.
{"title":"Allison Davis: Social Scientist for Social Justice","authors":"David A. Varel","doi":"10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.04","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Allison Davis (1902–1983) was one of the premier African American intellectuals of his generation. Having inherited a world dominated by the color line yet privileged enough to attend the most elite universities in the United States, Davis dedicated his life to social science. At turns an anthropologist, sociologist, psychologist, psychoanalyst, and educationalist, Davis spent his career com-batting race and class inequalities within an academy dominated by White men. He personally broke barriers by becoming the first African American to earn tenure at a predominantly White university, and his research was no less path breaking. It pushed the theoretical boundaries of multiples disciplines and influenced policymakers and activists alike. Through works such as Deep South (1941), Children of Bondage (1940), the Social-Class Influences upon Education (1948), and many other publications, Davis had a significant impact on American intellectual life—one that endures to this day. This essay explains Davis's contributions while also critically assessing the limitations of his body of work, including the top-down model of social change he represented and the marginalization of women and gender.","PeriodicalId":204420,"journal":{"name":"Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117111128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.03
Jimisha I Relerford
ABSTRACT:This article contributes to rhetoric and composition scholarship that develops localized institutional microhistories of rhetorical education at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) by exploring the pedagogically focused scholarship of G. David Houston, a Howard University professor of English during the period of the of the early twentieth century known as the New Negro Movement. I examine Houston's 1919 article "Reconstruction in the Teaching of English," placing the pedagogical priorities that it reveals within the context of the author's participation in on-campus activism at Howard, as reflected in his 1920 article "Weaknesses of the Negro College." Drawing on Susan Kates's concept of activist rhetorics, I demonstrate the ways in which Houston's work exemplifies an embodied pedagogy that responds directly to Howard University's unique institutional, historical, and social location. In his scholarship, Houston developed a plan for English instruction that sought to elevate the role of composition training, encourage a cross-disciplinary pedagogical model, and professionalize the teaching of English. Houston's plan reveals a kind of hybrid composition pedagogy that incorporates aspects of both the vocational and classical-liberal arts models of "Negro education" and responds directly to the needs of Black college students.
{"title":"Campus Protest and Composition Pedagogy: G. David Houston's Activist Rhetoric at Howard University","authors":"Jimisha I Relerford","doi":"10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.03","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article contributes to rhetoric and composition scholarship that develops localized institutional microhistories of rhetorical education at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) by exploring the pedagogically focused scholarship of G. David Houston, a Howard University professor of English during the period of the of the early twentieth century known as the New Negro Movement. I examine Houston's 1919 article \"Reconstruction in the Teaching of English,\" placing the pedagogical priorities that it reveals within the context of the author's participation in on-campus activism at Howard, as reflected in his 1920 article \"Weaknesses of the Negro College.\" Drawing on Susan Kates's concept of activist rhetorics, I demonstrate the ways in which Houston's work exemplifies an embodied pedagogy that responds directly to Howard University's unique institutional, historical, and social location. In his scholarship, Houston developed a plan for English instruction that sought to elevate the role of composition training, encourage a cross-disciplinary pedagogical model, and professionalize the teaching of English. Houston's plan reveals a kind of hybrid composition pedagogy that incorporates aspects of both the vocational and classical-liberal arts models of \"Negro education\" and responds directly to the needs of Black college students.","PeriodicalId":204420,"journal":{"name":"Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134595081","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.10
T. Price-Spratlen
ABSTRACT:William Julius Wilson's living legacy is unassailable. His accomplishments are many and unique, and his contributions, to and beyond academia, have established him as one among the very few "public intellectuals" whose work has informed presidential administrations, been reviewed on the pages of mainstream media outlets, and has led him to lecture from the most prestigious speaker podiums that exist. Yet a tension, a sociological dissonance, remains. It is marked by several appreciations of Professor Wilson's diverse excellence, along with many gnawing concerns about what he has written, and what symbolism, analyses, and problematic retreats from racial reckoning have been associated with his long and productive career. I consider how this dissonance is most pointedly reflected in the major works he has written and thoughtful risks he has taken with them. In dialogue with his profound career, this paper explores tensions associated with those major works and appreciates his many achievements.
{"title":"Sociological Dissonance and the Work of William Julius Wilson: An Appraisal","authors":"T. Price-Spratlen","doi":"10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/spectrum.9.1-2.10","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:William Julius Wilson's living legacy is unassailable. His accomplishments are many and unique, and his contributions, to and beyond academia, have established him as one among the very few \"public intellectuals\" whose work has informed presidential administrations, been reviewed on the pages of mainstream media outlets, and has led him to lecture from the most prestigious speaker podiums that exist. Yet a tension, a sociological dissonance, remains. It is marked by several appreciations of Professor Wilson's diverse excellence, along with many gnawing concerns about what he has written, and what symbolism, analyses, and problematic retreats from racial reckoning have been associated with his long and productive career. I consider how this dissonance is most pointedly reflected in the major works he has written and thoughtful risks he has taken with them. In dialogue with his profound career, this paper explores tensions associated with those major works and appreciates his many achievements.","PeriodicalId":204420,"journal":{"name":"Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men","volume":"223 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123082491","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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