DOCSLIB.ORG

Viewers Recognize the Youth and Wholesomeness of Her Son Unsettle These

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Viewers Recognize the Youth and Wholesomeness of Her Son Unsettle These © 2010 KATE L. FLACH ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MAMIE TILL AND JULIA: BLACK WOMEN’S JOURNEY FROM REAL TO REALISTIC IN 1950S AND 60S TV A Thesis Presented to The Graduate Faculty of the University of Akron In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts, History Kate L. Flach December, 2010 MAMIE TILL AND JULIA: BLACK WOMEN’S JOURNEY FROM REAL TO REALISTIC IN 1950S AND 60S Kate L. Flach Thesis Approved: Accepted: ________________________________ _________________________________ Advisor Dean of the College Dr. Tracey Jean Boisseau Dr. Chand Midha ________________________________ _________________________________ Co-Advisor Dean of the Graduate School Dr. Zachary Williams Dr. George R. Newkome ________________________________ _________________________________ Department Chair Date Dr. Michael Sheng ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................1 II. FROM REAL IMAGES TO REEL EXPOSURE ......................................................5 III. WATCH AND LEARN: ESTABLISHING BLACK MIDDLE CLASS-NESS THROUGH MEDIA ................................................................................................17 IV. COVERING POST-WAR MOTHERHOOD ON TELEVISION ...........................26 V. INTERUPTING I LOVE LUCY FOR THIS? The Televised Emmett Till Trial ..............34 VI. CROSSING ALL Ts AND DOTTING LOWER CASE Js ......................................41 VII. CONCLUSION:“Okay, she can be the mother…” julia, November 26, 1968 .......50 REFERENCED WORKS ..................................................................................................54 iii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Lynching, or ritualized and publicized community sanctioned murder, was the single most terrifying tool Southern whites used to protect white supremacy following the end of slavery. Although lynching had seen its peak in terms of numbers and frequency in the early decades of the twentieth century and had declined since a vibrant movement to eradicate it had emerged in the 1930s, Southern whites never entirely forsook the practice even in the post-war period. With new forms of civil rights activism on the rise in the 1950s, Supreme Court decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education being rendered and constituted, and communities of urban blacks with middle class sectors emerging, white segregationists found themselves on the defensive. Given the increased reach of media in the South in the postwar period, the fewer but arguably more spectacular instances of lynching that occurred in the 1950s had an impact that exceeded the small localities in which they were held—an impact, however over which Southern whites were not in complete control. Intended as a warning to blacks located in the north and south that new anti-segregationist and anti-racist mores would have no bearing on social relations in Mississippi at least, the lynching of Till brought national attention to the state in ways unforeseen by the men who did the lynching and by their defenders. Much of the credit for the change in the way the nation as a whole reacted to instances of 1 lynching in the South following the murder of Emmet Till goes to his mother, Mamie Till Bradley. While lynching continued to have the intended consequence of instilling terror for some, especially those blacks in the immediate vicinity of the murder, the cultural memory of lynching and its political use and meaning at the national level would undergo radical change following the 1955 murder of fourteen year old Emmett Till in Mississippi. It was Mamie Till’s access to and, especially, her deft manipulation of television media that, I argue, transformed her son’s murder from a successful terrorizing tool of segregationists into a vehicle for the discrediting of lynching nationwide. With the assistance of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Mamie Till distributed photographs and video footage of her son’s body at his funeral to a cross-race national audience via both newspaper press and television. Rather than confirming the brutish status of black people, in Mamie Till’s public appearances and telling of her son’s fate, lynching came across as an inexplicable act of murder performed by irrational and hateful whites. Though whites, nationwide, had long been aware of lynching and had been exposed to anti-racist critiques of it since at least Ida B. Wells Barnett’s ‘crusade’ of the late nineteenth century,1 Bradley used television to re- expose the nation to lynching in ways that signaled its demise as a useful tool of the Jim Crow social system. She commanded a reconsideration of the racist rationales and undermined the practice most effectively by asserting herself in the public eye as an educated, middle class black mother devastated over the death of her son. Mamie Till’s poise, middle-class demeanor and her determination to emphasize her son’s youth by 1 Ida B. Wells-Barnett. On Lynchings (New York: Humanity Books, 2002). 1 putting virtuous images of them both before the public destabilized the usual presumptions regarding lynching. Principal among these assumptions was the notion that lynching protected a decorous middle-class Southern white womanhood from rapacious lower-class black male predators—the converse of both depictions was the image of the overly sexual or slovenly black woman. Not only did Mamie Till’s insistence that television viewers recognize the youth and wholesomeness of her son unsettle these assumptions, her presentation of herself as a wholesome and decent mother also constituted evidence contradicting predominant ideas about class and race identity. Television’s immediacy provided a visual juxtaposition of Mamie Till Bradley and the white woman Emmett Till allegedly wolf-whistled at, Carolyn Bryant. Bryant appears, in contrast with Till, as a lower-class woman whose physical appearance fell short of middle-class standards of femininity and beauty as otherwise portrayed on television. The sympathetic posing of Bradley as an articulate, poised, and coiffed middle-class mother, alongside Carolyn Bryant’s more awkward and working-class appearance, upended the racial connotations attached to women’s class status and, in doing so, placed the sexual politics of lynching into jeopardy. To understand the significance of Bradley’s intervention in the symbolic representation of race, this paper analyzes race and gender mores established in popular television sitcoms of the 1950s and compares them to live coverage of Emmett Till’s murder and specifically to media portrayals of Mamie Till Bradley. Bradley’s strategic intervention in American mass cultural depictions of African Americans had a ripple effect in the culture beyond that of destabilizing ideas about the justifications for lynching. Her well-coiffed and gracious appearance, compared to Carolyn Bryant’s plain 2 dress and sometimes unseemly behavior, altered public sensibilities linking race and class paving way for television programs featuring chic middle class African Americans in shows such as julia. Other scholars have shown how previous television programs such as Amos ‘n Andy and Beulah in addition to film, advertisements and magazines served to entertain white audiences while “educating” black viewers on how to speak and act. In this paper, I argue that Bradley’s ‘real-life’ presentation of self in news outlets carried just as much or more significance as an educating vehicle. Bradley’s debut on all three networks’ news broadcast over the course of several months in 1955 helped break down the prevailing race and gender constructs of what middle class motherhood looked like for a new generation of Americans glued to their television sets as well as an international audience tuned in to the controversy. Bradley’s evident black middle class- ness normalized a new image of black motherhood that was later displayed in NBC’s situation comedy julia, starring Diahann Carroll, which debuted in 1968 and ran for three seasons. Carroll’s portrayal of Julia in these years presents a more assertive and independent image of a mother, in strong contrast to 1950s family sitcoms such as Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver in which mothers embodied cooperative helpmates to fathers who took center stage of the programs. Carroll’s role as Julia did not resemble these images of womanhood; instead, as a widowed mother who worked but also maintained a decorous and attractive demeanor, the fictional Julia closely paralleled the ‘real-life’ image presented by Mamie Till Bradley thirteen years prior via live television. Thirteen years after Emmett Till’s violent death, new generations of TV- watchers were psychologically prepared to “believe” in a black woman who met the expected standards of mainstream middle-class motherhood signaled by an attractive 3 appearance, impeccable deportment, and wholesome devotedness to a son. Bradley’s assertion of herself as a respectable mother in 1950s mass media helped transform the gender and racial discourse regarding motherhood and housewifery by visually altering what “decent” families in general, and “good” mothers in particular, looked like. This essay is divided into two parts, with chapters II-IV examining how standards of beauty and motherhood were constructed in 1950s American popular culture, specifically in magazines and on television. Chapters V-VII in the second part of the essay, compare Mamie Till Bradley’s appearance in news stories about her son’s
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Re-Mixing Old Character Tropes on Screen: Kerry Washington, Viola Davis, and the New Femininity by Melina Kristine Dabney A
    Re-mixing Old Character Tropes on Screen: Kerry Washington, Viola Davis, and the New Femininity By Melina Kristine Dabney A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Film Studies 2017 This thesis entitled: Re-mixing Old Character Tropes on Screen: Kerry Washington, Viola Davis, and the new Femininity written by Melina Kristine Dabney has been approved for the Department of Film Studies ________________________________________________ (Melinda Barlow, Ph.D., Committee Chair) ________________________________________________ (Suranjan Ganguly, Ph.D., Committee Member) ________________________________________________ (Reiland Rabaka, Ph.D., Committee Member) Date: The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we Find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards Of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. Dabney, Melina Kristine (BA/MA Film Studies) Re-mixing Old Character Tropes on Screen: Kerry Washington, Viola Davis, and the New Femininity Thesis directed by Professor Melinda Barlow While there is a substantial amount of scholarship on the depiction of African American women in film and television, this thesis exposes the new formations of African American femininity on screen. African American women have consistently resisted, challenged, submitted to, and remixed racial myths and sexual stereotypes existing in American cinema and television programming. Mainstream film and television practices significantly contribute to the reinforcement of old stereotypes in contemporary black women characters. However, based on the efforts of African American producers like Shonda Rhimes, who has attempted to insert more realistic renderings of African American women in her recent television shows, black women’s representation is undergoing yet another shift in contemporary media.
    [Show full text]
  • Jazz and the Cultural Transformation of America in the 1920S
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2003 Jazz and the cultural transformation of America in the 1920s Courtney Patterson Carney Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Carney, Courtney Patterson, "Jazz and the cultural transformation of America in the 1920s" (2003). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 176. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/176 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. JAZZ AND THE CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA IN THE 1920S A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Courtney Patterson Carney B.A., Baylor University, 1996 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1998 December 2003 For Big ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The real truth about it is no one gets it right The real truth about it is we’re all supposed to try1 Over the course of the last few years I have been in contact with a long list of people, many of whom have had some impact on this dissertation. At the University of Chicago, Deborah Gillaspie and Ray Gadke helped immensely by guiding me through the Chicago Jazz Archive.
    [Show full text]
  • Selected Highlights of Women's History
    Selected Highlights of Women’s History United States & Connecticut 1773 to 2015 The Permanent Commission on the Status of Women omen have made many contributions, large and Wsmall, to the history of our state and our nation. Although their accomplishments are too often left un- recorded, women deserve to take their rightful place in the annals of achievement in politics, science and inven- Our tion, medicine, the armed forces, the arts, athletics, and h philanthropy. 40t While this is by no means a complete history, this book attempts to remedy the obscurity to which too many Year women have been relegated. It presents highlights of Connecticut women’s achievements since 1773, and in- cludes entries from notable moments in women’s history nationally. With this edition, as the PCSW celebrates the 40th anniversary of its founding in 1973, we invite you to explore the many ways women have shaped, and continue to shape, our state. Edited and designed by Christine Palm, Communications Director This project was originally created under the direction of Barbara Potopowitz with assistance from Christa Allard. It was updated on the following dates by PCSW’s interns: January, 2003 by Melissa Griswold, Salem College February, 2004 by Nicole Graf, University of Connecticut February, 2005 by Sarah Hoyle, Trinity College November, 2005 by Elizabeth Silverio, St. Joseph’s College July, 2006 by Allison Bloom, Vassar College August, 2007 by Michelle Hodge, Smith College January, 2013 by Andrea Sanders, University of Connecticut Information contained in this book was culled from many sources, including (but not limited to): The Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, the U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • The Example of Private Slovik
    The Example of Private Slovik Of the thousands of American soldiers court­martialed for desertion in World War II, Eddie Slovik was the only one put to death. One of the judges who convicted him looks back with regret. by Benedict B. Kimmelman When Private Eddie Slovik was executed on January 31,1945, he became the only American put to death for desertion since Lincoln was President. After his death he became the subject of a book that sold in the millions, numerous magazine articles, a television special, a play or two, and several public campaigns that made his case an issue and still keep it alive. I saw Eddie Slovik for most of one morning, no more, and he never said a word to me. 1 cannot say for certain whether it is his face I remember or a photograph in a magazine article based on William Bradford Huie’s best seller The Execution of Private Slovik. But I sat on Slovik’s court­martial, as one of the nine officer­judges who unanimously voted the death penalty. In August of 1944 Eddie Slovik was a twenty­four­year­old replacement trucked up one day in a group assigned to an infantry line company in France. Encountering shellbursts and heavy fire for the first time, he knew at once that he could never make it on the line. With a buddy he hid out, and on the following day they turned themselves in to Canadian military police who were passing through. Not under arrest, they made themselves generally useful for the next six weeks, until the Canadians returned them to American military control on October 5.
    [Show full text]
  • |||GET||| Writing to Save a Life the Louis Till File 1St Edition
    WRITING TO SAVE A LIFE THE LOUIS TILL FILE 1ST EDITION DOWNLOAD FREE John Edgar Wideman | 9781501147289 | | | | | Louis Till Just wow! Everybody knows the tragic story of Emmett Till, but I never really thought of his father before I began reading this book. It seemed to this reader Wideman leveraged the story of Emmett Till and his father Louis to tell his own story. Help carry the weight of hard years spent behind bars. Though we certainly know how. Categories : births deaths 20th-century executions by the United States military 20th-century executions of American people African-American military personnel American army personnel of World War II American male criminals American people convicted of murder American people convicted of rape American people executed abroad Executed African-American people Executed people from Missouri Murder in Italy People executed by the United States military by hanging People convicted of murder by the United States military People executed for murder People from New Madrid, Missouri United States Army soldiers. This one was not an easy read, not because Writing to Save a Life The Louis Till File 1st edition the subject matter, but because of the meandering way it seemed to me to read. As apparently back then the sins of the fathers were visited upon their children, the federal case was never pursued. I stuck with it because I have a ton Writing to Save a Life The Louis Till File 1st edition respect for John Edgar Wideman and loved many of his books. On June 27,near the Italian town of Civitavecchia, where American soldiers were camped nearby, sirens sounded a false alarm, gunfire erupted as searchlights scanned the dark night sky.
    [Show full text]
  • RED BANK SECTION and Surroundlnf Town* T»M Mrlmflv and Without Bias RED BANK REGISTER ONE
    AIX the NEWS of RED BANK SECTION and Surroundlnf Town* T»M mrlMflv and Without Bias RED BANK REGISTER ONE VOLUME LX1II, NO. 8. RED BANK, N. J., THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 1940. PAGES 1 TO 14« Shrewsbury Hoie No Reduction In Did Sapp Sock Social Service To Spoure With Saucer?, Company Opposes Interest Rate On Mrs. Vinnle T. Sapp of M5 River Dollar Days In Red Bank street was taken to Riverview hos- Hold Annual Session Fire Ordinance Taxes At Rumson pital Monday morning with bruises on her forehead and cheek and a cut on the forehead which was Chief Says New „ Finance Committee closed with one stitch, received dur- Today, Tomorrow and Sat.; Six Student Nuriet to Receive ing an argument with her husband, Law Too Elaborate- Decides to Retain Thomas Sapp. Mrs. Sapp explained that she threw Certificates September 4 To Seek Changes Eight Per Cent Rate a saucer at her husband and In some mysterious way the saucer returned Store-Wide Bargains Galore The Monmouth. County Organiza- Members of Shrewsbury Hose com- The Interest rat* on delinquent to bruise her. Mrs. Sapp refused tion (or Social Service will hold 1U pany Tueaday night went on record taxes in Rumson will remain at to aay whether Sapp caught the annual meeting Wednesday, Septem- "Abe," Boat Porter aa unanimously opposed to the new eight per cent. Councilman Sheldon aaucer and returned it on the wing Legion Meets Warning Period For Many Merchants Co- ber 4, at Brookdale Farm, Llncroft, fire ordinance which waa introduced T. Coleman, chairman of the finance or whether the recalcitrant plate home of the president of the organ- and pawed on first reading Tueaday committee, reported to the mayor boom e ran Red to damage her face.
    [Show full text]
  • Religion, White Supremacy, and the Rise and Fall of Thomas Dixon, Jr
    W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 2013 "History Written with Lightning": Religion, White Supremacy, and the Rise and Fall of Thomas Dixon, Jr David Michael Kidd College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the American Literature Commons, Ethnic Studies Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Kidd, David Michael, ""History Written with Lightning": Religion, White Supremacy, and the Rise and Fall of Thomas Dixon, Jr" (2013). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539623616. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-5k6d-9535 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “History Written With Lightning”: Religion, White Supremacy, and the Rise and Fall of Thomas Dixon, Jr. David Michael Kidd Norfolk, Virginia Master of Arts, University of Florida, 1992 Bachelor of Arts, Auburn University, 1990 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the College of William and Mary in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy American Studies The College of William and Mary May, 2013 © 2013 David M. Kidd All Rights Reserved APPROVAL PAGE This Dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy David Michael Kidd Approved by the Committee, April, 2013 Committee Chair Professor of American Studies and English, Susan V.
    [Show full text]
  • Voices Section M
    Voices section M You'll never find a sparring partner in life better than adversity. ~ Golda Meir ~ MacArthur MacDonald Magie Mahler Malamud Mandela Mao Margaret Marley Marquez Marston Martin Martineau Marx Maslow Massey Matthau Maupassant McCrae McDaniel Mckuen McLean Mead Meir Melville Mencius Mencken Meredith Millar Milne Mitchell Mitchell Monroe Montaigne Montalban Montand Montgomery Montessori Moore Morgan Morrison Morrison Morton Mozart Mukherjee Murdoch Even when opportunity knocks, a man still has to get up off his seat and open the door.* Même lorsque l'occasion se présente, un homme a encore de se lever de son siège et ouvre la porte. 即使有机会碰，一名男子仍要起床掉他的座椅上，打开了车门. Douglas MacArthur General ww 2 Jan 26, 1880 - Apr 5, 1964 Voicesvoyagethroughtime Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will. L'intégrité n'est pas un mot de mise en liberté sous condition. Il de souffler dans le vent ou changer avec le temps. C'est votre image intérieure de vous-même, et si vous regardez en y pour voir un homme qui a gagné de tricher, alors vous savez qu'il ne le fera jamais. 誠信不是一種有條件的字詞. 它不在風吹或更改後的天氣. 這是你的內在的形象, 並在那裏看到自己如果你 看一個人誰贏得作弊, 那麼你知道他永遠也不會. John Dann MacDonald Writer Jul 24, 1916 - Dec 28, 1986 Voicesvoyagethroughtime I am thankful that I was taught how to think and not what to think. Lizzie Magie Gamer designer: Monopoly Elizabeth Magie Philips 1866 ~ 1948 Voicesvoyagethroughtime Discipline, work.
    [Show full text]
  • Congressional Record United States Th of America PROCEEDINGS and DEBATES of the 110 CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION
    E PL UR UM IB N U U S Congressional Record United States th of America PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 110 CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION Vol. 154 WASHINGTON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 2008 No. 130 House of Representatives The House met at 9 a.m. environmental group based in the Mad families that their interests are impor- The Chaplain, the Reverend Daniel P. River Valley of Vermont. Formed in tant enough for this Congress to stay Coughlin, offered the following prayer: the fall of 2007 by three local environ- here and lower gas prices. Is God in the motion or in the static? mentalists, Carbon Shredders dedicates In conclusion, God bless our troops, Is God in the problem or in the re- its time to curbing local energy con- and we will never forget September the solve? sumption, helping Vermonters lower 11th. Godspeed for the future careers to Is God in the activity or in the rest? their energy costs, and working to- Second District staff members, Chirag Is God in the noise or in the silence? wards a clean energy future. The group Shah and Kori Lorick. Wherever You are, Lord God, be in challenges participants to alter their f our midst, both now and forever. lifestyles in ways consistent with the Amen. goal of reducing energy consumption. COMMEMORATING THE MIN- In March, three Vermont towns f NEAPOLIS I–35W BRIDGE COL- passed resolutions introduced by Car- LAPSE THE JOURNAL bon Shredders that call on residents (Mr. ELLISON asked and was given The SPEAKER. The Chair has exam- and businesses to reduce their carbon footprint by 10 percent by 2010.
    [Show full text]
  • Doherty, Thomas, Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, Mccarthyism
    doherty_FM 8/21/03 3:20 PM Page i COLD WAR, COOL MEDIUM TELEVISION, McCARTHYISM, AND AMERICAN CULTURE doherty_FM 8/21/03 3:20 PM Page ii Film and Culture A series of Columbia University Press Edited by John Belton What Made Pistachio Nuts? Early Sound Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic Henry Jenkins Showstoppers: Busby Berkeley and the Tradition of Spectacle Martin Rubin Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II Thomas Doherty Laughing Screaming: Modern Hollywood Horror and Comedy William Paul Laughing Hysterically: American Screen Comedy of the 1950s Ed Sikov Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema Rey Chow The Cinema of Max Ophuls: Magisterial Vision and the Figure of Woman Susan M. White Black Women as Cultural Readers Jacqueline Bobo Picturing Japaneseness: Monumental Style, National Identity, Japanese Film Darrell William Davis Attack of the Leading Ladies: Gender, Sexuality, and Spectatorship in Classic Horror Cinema Rhona J. Berenstein This Mad Masquerade: Stardom and Masculinity in the Jazz Age Gaylyn Studlar Sexual Politics and Narrative Film: Hollywood and Beyond Robin Wood The Sounds of Commerce: Marketing Popular Film Music Jeff Smith Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Popular Culture Michael Anderegg Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, ‒ Thomas Doherty Sound Technology and the American Cinema: Perception, Representation, Modernity James Lastra Melodrama and Modernity: Early Sensational Cinema and Its Contexts Ben Singer
    [Show full text]
  • Hillside NEIGHBORHOOD DESCRIPTION the Hillside Neighborhood Is a Residential Island Surrounded by Industry and Freeways
    Approximate boundaries: N-N. Halyard St; S-W. Fond Du Lac Ave; E-N. 6th St; W-Hwy 43 NORTH SIDEHillside NEIGHBORHOOD DESCRIPTION The Hillside neighborhood is a residential island surrounded by industry and freeways. The main housing styles in Hillside are the multi-story apartment complexes and one- story homes around the parks. Interspersed are a few old industrial buildings. There are two parks in the Hillside neighborhood--James W. Beckum Park, which has an area for little league baseball, and Carver Park, a 23-acre space with playground equipment. See photos below. HISTORY The area that is today’s Hillside neighborhood is located in the center of what was once known as the city’s Bronzeville community (with borders within Juneau and North Avenues, and old 3rd and 17th Streets— the widest area given by local historians). And before there was Bronzeville, there were other communities in today’s Hillside area. Early populations The original area comprising Hillside was developed after 1850. The early population was mostly German and they lived within walking distance of jobs at tanneries, the Schlitz Brewery, shoe factories, and mills. The Hillside neighborhood specifically attracted a number of German elite. According to John Gurda in Milwaukee, City of Neighborhoods (p. 188): So many Uihleins (owners of the Schlitz Brewery) lived on or near Galena Street that the area was known as “Uihlein Hill,” conveniently overlooking the family’s Third Street brewing complex. One of their mansions, which stayed in the family until the 1940s, stood just north of what is now the Hillside Terrace Family Resource Center.
    [Show full text]
  • History of Injustice in the United States BRNG B242 T-TH: 12:00-1:15 P.M
    Purdue University African American Studies and Research Center Spring Semester 2015 AAS 37300: History of Injustice in the United States BRNG B242 T-TH: 12:00-1:15 p.m. Instructor: Dr. Ronald J. Stephens Office: 6176 Steven Beering Hall of Liberal Arts & Education Hours: Tuesdays 3:30-5 p.m. & by appointments Email: [email protected] Course objectives History of Injustice in the United States is a survey course that explores interactions between the U.S. judicial and criminal justice systems, federal, state, and local governments, and members of African American communities. The course explores key documents and diverse patterns of unpunished acts of terror, violence, racial discrimination, and economic injustice involving African American life experiences during the 19th, 20th and 21s centuries. The course engages a series of critical readings, focused class discussions, individual writing assignments, the viewing of documentary films, team debates, and written examinations. Course objectives are: 1. To encourage learning about the legal origins of the present system of injustice 2. To provide a basic understanding of key provisions of the US Constitution that are important in regards to fighting against injustice 3. To explore case studies about systems of injustice in the U.S. regarding African Americans, and to analyze the impact of specific court rulings concerning their struggle against injustice 4. To enhance learning by allowing students to examine examples of injustice in the US, and by requiring them to document their impressions, opinions, and reactions to them and other topics. Learning Outcomes By the end of the semester, students should be able to critically think, read, and write about their impressions of injustice in our nation’s history.
    [Show full text]