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Sociological Discourses on Color, Class, and Gender, from Depression to World War II

Laila Haidarali

in Brown Beauty: Color, Sex, and Race from the Harlem Renaissance to World War II

This chapter daws on three published sociological works: Franklin E. Frazier’s, Negro Youth at the Crossways (1940), Charles S. Johnson’s, Growing Up in the Black Belt (1941), and Charles H. ... More

This chapter daws on three published sociological works: Franklin E. Frazier’s, Negro Youth at the Crossways (1940), Charles S. Johnson’s, Growing Up in the Black Belt (1941), and Charles H. Parrish’s, Color Names and Color Notions (1946). These sociological views on color showed brown identity as an emergent social ideal and image of African America, and in varying degrees drew crucial connections of brownness to values associated with an ascendant middle-class status. These sociologists are presented as racial liberals who offered concrete and critical assessments of the rising idealization of brown complexions among African American youth coming of age between the Great Depression and World War II.Less

New Negro Husbands

Anastasia C. Curwood

in Stormy Weather: Middle-Class African American Marriages between the Two World Wars

This chapter describes the ideal New Negro husband. After World War II, many men sought to claim the right to rule their households. The chapter examines three places where New Negro men constructed ... More

This chapter describes the ideal New Negro husband. After World War II, many men sought to claim the right to rule their households. The chapter examines three places where New Negro men constructed husband's roles: the pages of the magazine, Messenger; the writings of sociologist E. Franklin Frazier; and the unpublished journals and correspondence of the writer Jean Toomer.Less

Capital Gains

Joseph R. Fitzgerald

in The Struggle Is Eternal: Gloria Richardson and Black Liberation

This chapter follows Gloria Richardson’s ongoing intellectual development at Howard University in Washington, DC. Under the tutelage of intellectual giants such as E. Franklin Frazier, Rayford Logan, ... More

This chapter follows Gloria Richardson’s ongoing intellectual development at Howard University in Washington, DC. Under the tutelage of intellectual giants such as E. Franklin Frazier, Rayford Logan, and Sterling Brown, Richardson broadened and sharpened her social, economic, and political philosophies. Through her sociology courses, Richardson obtained the knowledge and research skills that would provecritical to her leadership of the Cambridge movement. It was also during her time at Howard that Richardson participated in her first organized protest against racism.Less

African American Cultural Expression in Chicago before the Renaissance: The Performing, Visual, and Literary Arts, 1893–1933

Christopher Robert Reed

in The Black Chicago Renaissance

This chapter examines the local historical context of the Black Chicago Renaissance. It discusses the existence of a layered class structure within the black community, and underscores the importance ... More

This chapter examines the local historical context of the Black Chicago Renaissance. It discusses the existence of a layered class structure within the black community, and underscores the importance and the complicated tradition of support of the arts by elite black and later members of the black entrepreneurial and professional middle class. Black patronage, for both aesthetic and exploitative reasons, served an important function in providing space for creative expression and the means for its distribution and commoditization. Furthermore, the chapter is a response to the claims made by social scientists Charles S. Johnson and E. Franklin Frazier. In 1923, Johnson declared that Chicago's intellectual life had numerous excuses for not existing. In 1929, Fraser echoed Johnson's assertion, insisting that Chicago had no intelligentsia.Less

Black History and Slave Breeding in the Early Twentieth Century

Gregory D. Smithers

in Slave Breeding: Sex, Violence, and Memory in African American History

An historical discussion of how African American scholars responded to the historical writing of white professional historians and how they crafted their own narratives of slavery.

The 1920s and 1930s Voodoo Craze: African Survivals in American Popular Culture and the Ivory Tower

Melissa L. Cooper

in Making Gullah: A History of Sapelo Islanders, Race, and the American Imagination

This chapter explores the 1920s and 1930s "voodoo craze" by examing the way that negative ideas about "Africa" and "Africans" during these years, and the prevelance of the common association between ... More

This chapter explores the 1920s and 1930s "voodoo craze" by examing the way that negative ideas about "Africa" and "Africans" during these years, and the prevelance of the common association between Africa and spiritual primitivism (superstitions, the belief in black magic, and dark rituals) became a prominent theme in assessments of Gullah folk's African connection. Using newspapers that circulated in popular migration destinations, films, plays, and travel writers' accounts to trace popular ideas about African survivals, this chapter charts a mounting obsession with southern black voodoo and superstition that reenergizes the debate over African survivals in the academe.Less

Family Crises or Home Remedies: Defining the Problems among African Americans and Whites in the South, 1890s–1930s

Ted Ownby

in Hurtin' Words: Debating Family Problems in the Twentieth-Century South

This chapter compares discussions of family problems among African Americans and whites in the American South in the early 1900s. Both African American and white southerners discussed an ongoing ... More

This chapter compares discussions of family problems among African Americans and whites in the American South in the early 1900s. Both African American and white southerners discussed an ongoing crisis among African Americans, with considerable disagreement about whether they should explain that crisis, fix the problems that caused it, or pass laws to protect white people against the consequences. By contrast, white southerners imagined that most whites had stable family lives, especially when they lived on farms, and perhaps needed occasional reform movements to address specific problems.Less

Critiquing Middle-Class Culture

David A. Varel

in The Lost Black Scholar: Resurrecting Allison Davis in American Social Thought

The seventh chapter examines Davis’s work as part of the Department of Education at the University of Chicago in the 1940s. It explains the productive interdisciplinary research he conducted ... More

The seventh chapter examines Davis’s work as part of the Department of Education at the University of Chicago in the 1940s. It explains the productive interdisciplinary research he conducted alongside Ralph Tyler, Robert Havighurst, Lloyd Warner, and many others as part of Chicago’s Committee on Human Development and other organizations. In this period, Davis developed his most significant social thought, which drew from his culture-and-personality orientation to posit class as a type of culture, or learning environment. While most American theorists had turned away from class analyses, Davis continued to explore the deep-seated class divisions within the United States, particularly as they characterized the family, the workplace, and the school. In many ways, his analyses and accomplishments matched those of prominent black sociologist E. Franklin Frazier. In addition to publishing many articles in esteemed journals, Davis released Father of the Man (1947), which explained to a public audience the implications of class divisions for the rearing of children. His work related to the intercultural education movement had the most enduring impact.Less