Geographic and temporal diversity in dental morphology reflects a history of admixture, isolation, and drift in African Americans

Author(s):  
Jessica M. Gross ◽  
Heather J. H. Edgar
Author(s):  
Anthony B. Pinn

This chapter explores the history of humanism within African American communities. It positions humanist thinking and humanism-inspired activism as a significant way in which people of African descent in the United States have addressed issues of racial injustice. Beginning with critiques of theism found within the blues, moving through developments such as the literature produced by Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, and others, to political activists such as W. E. B. DuBois and A. Philip Randolph, to organized humanism in the form of African American involvement in the Unitarian Universalist Association, African Americans for Humanism, and so on, this chapter presents the historical and institutional development of African American humanism.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 506-506
Author(s):  
Rodlescia Sneed

Abstract African-Americans are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. Longer prison stays and release programs for older prisoners may result in an increased number of community-dwelling older adults with a history of incarceration. In recent years, there has been a substantial increase in research on health-related outcomes for currently incarcerated older adults; however, there has been little inquiry into outcomes for formerly incarcerated African-American older adults following community re-entry. In this study, we used secondary data from the Health and Retirement Study to describe employment, economic, and health-related outcomes in this population. Twelve percent of the 2238 African-Americans in our sample had been previously incarcerated. Those who had been previously incarcerated had higher rates of lung disease, arthritis, back problems, mobility problems, and mental health issues than their counterparts. They also had higher rates of hospitalization and lower use of dental health services. Further, while they did not experience lower employment rates than those with no criminal history, those who had been incarcerated had more physically demanding jobs and reported greater economic strain. Given the disproportionate incarceration rates among African-Americans, the aging of the prison population, and the increase in community re-entry for older prisoners, research that explores factors that impact the health and well-being of formerly incarcerated individuals has broad impact. Future work should focus on addressing the needs of this vulnerable population of African-American older adults.


Author(s):  
Shytierra Gaston

African Americans are disproportionately victimized by various forms of racialized violence. This long-standing reality is rooted in America’s history of racist violence, one manifestation being racial lynchings. This article investigates the long-term, intergenerational consequences of racial lynchings by centering the voices and experiences of victims’ families. The data comprise in-depth interviews with twenty-two descendants of twenty-two victims lynched between 1883 and 1972 in the U.S. South. I employed a multistage qualitative analysis, revealing three main domains of harmful impacts: psychological, familial, and economic. The findings underscore that racist violence has imposed harm beyond victims and for many decades and generations after the violent event. These long-term, intergenerational harms, especially if multiplied across countless incidents, can fundamentally impact the well-being of individuals, families, and communities as well as contribute to structural and macrolevel forces. Findings from this study have implications for research, policy, and practice, including efforts toward redress and reparations.


1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Montgomery

This essay examines the language of an expatriate community as found in letters and petitions written by African Americans who migrated to Sierra Leone by way of Nova Scotia in 1792. These documents provide some of the earliest first-hand evidence of African American English and contribute to debates about the history of that variety. The paper compares selected grammatical features in that variety to modern-day African Nova Scotian English for insights to the history of African American English and develops a case for the principled use of manuscript documents for reconstructing earlier stages of colloquial English.


2015 ◽  
Vol 117 (14) ◽  
pp. 53-74
Author(s):  
Christopher M. Span

This chapter details how slavery, segregation, and racism impacted the educational experiences of African Americans from the colonial era to the present. It offers a historical overview of the African American educational experience and uses archival data and secondary source analysis to illustrate that America has yet to be a truly post-slavery and post-segregation society, let alone a post-racial society.


2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 265
Author(s):  
Trent Shotwell

History of African Americans: Exploring Diverse Roots by Thomas J. Davis chronicles the remarkable past of African Americans from the earliest arrival of their ancestors to the election of President Barack Obama. This work was produced to recognize every triumph and tragedy that separates African Americans as a group from others in America. By distinguishing the rich and unique history of African Americans, History of African Americans: Exploring Diverse Roots provides an account of inspiration, courage, and progress. Each chapter details a significant piece of African American history, and the book includes numerous concise portraits of prominent African Americans and their contributions to progressing social life in the United States.


Author(s):  
Emily Ruth Rutter

In 1975 the historian John Holway incredulously observed, “In America’s national baseball library, half the history of baseball was missing!” (xvii). Although African Americans had been actively engaged in the national pastime for over a century when Holway made these comments, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, had neglected to include their experiences behind the color line. In ...


Author(s):  
Kimberly M. Welch

Black plaintiffs in civil suits remain a little known aspect of the legal history of the slave South. African Americans were not only observers of trials, informal participants, defendants, or objects of regulation: trial court records reveal them to be prolific litigators as well. They were parties to civil suits in their own interests and directly active in legal proceedings. They sued other black people, certainly, but they also sued white people. What is more, they often won. This is a phenomenon that has largely been overlooked by historians. But it ought not to be, because it speaks to the heart of the ways we understand the operation of power, of law, and of racial hierarchies in the slave South. The black legal experience in America cannot be reduced to white regulation and black criminality. Examining African Americans’ involvement in private law reveals a different picture. Black people appealed to the courts to protect their interests. They exploited the language of rights and property, thus including themselves within an American narrative of citizenship and privilege in advance of formal emancipation. When black litigants made such claims at law, they expected the courts to validate and execute those claims. Indeed, they sought accountability. Thus, seemingly mundane civil actions like debt recovery suits complicate our notions about the sources of rights and their relationship to civic inclusion.


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