Uplifting the South

Uplifting the South PDF

Author: Kathleen Curtis Wilson

Publisher: The Overmountain Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9781570723025

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Although Scarlett O'Hara's is a fictional character developed by a skilful author, there were some real Southern women who truly possessed legendary strengths. One such woman is Mary Sullivan, a 19th century woman with an iron will, persuasive Southern charm, and motives that were selfless in contrast to Scarlett's entirely selfish ones. Sullivan deserves recognition for her contribution to the South and to all of American society as the role of women changed dramatically in the 19th and 20th centuries.. In 1860, Sullivan was a strikingly beautiful, twenty-four-year-old woman, endowed with allure and social graces born of her prominent Virginia lineage and rich Southern culture. A benevolent agent for the needs of children and a supporter of education for underprivileged youth in Appalachia, Sullivan was a committed humanitarian throughout her life. Sullivan lived two different kinds of life in one lifetime. Her adult life was spent in New York City during a period of American history unsurpassed for violence and change, but Sullivan's daring exploits in Virginia during the Civil War and her efforts on behalf of Southern Reconstruction are fascinating stories that show the passionate personality of a determined woman. Sullivan's greatest, though least acknowledged, gift to human kind is her legacy to Appalachia that has extensive regional significance - one hundred years of helping young adults with few financial resources receive scholarship money to complete their education.

Science and Medicine in the Old South

Science and Medicine in the Old South PDF

Author: Ronald Numbers

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 1999-03-01

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9780807124956

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

With a few notable exceptions, historians have tended to ignore the role that science and medicine played in the antebellum South. The fourteen essays in Science and Medicine in the Old South help to redress that neglect by considering scientific and medical developments in the early nineteenth-century South and by showing the ways in which the South’s scientific and medical activities differed from those of other regions. The book is divided into two sections. The essays in the first section examine the broad background of science in the South between 1830 and 1860; the second section addresses medicine specifically. The essays frequently counterpoint each other. In the first section, Ronald Numbers and Janet Numbers argue that he South’s failure to “keep pace” with the North in scientific areas resulted from demographic factors. William Scarborough asserts that slavery produced a social structure that encouraged agricultural and political careers rather than scientific and industrial ones. Charles Dew offers a strong indictment of slavery, suggesting that the conservative influence of the institution severely discouraged the adoption of modern technologies. Other essays examine institutions of higher learning in the South, southern scientific societies, and the relationship between science and theology. The section on medicine in the Old South also examines the ways in which the medical needs and practices of the Old South were both similar to and distinct from those of other regions. K. David Patterson argues that slavery in effect imported African diseases into the Southeast and created a “modified West African disease environment.” James H. Cassedy points out that land-management policies determined by slavery—land clearing, soil exhaustion—also helped created a distinctive disease environment. Other contributors discuss southern public health problems, domestic medicine, slave folk beliefs, and the special medical needs of blacks. Science and Medicine in the Old South is a long-overdue examination of these segments of the southern cultural milieu. These essays will do much to clarify misconceptions about the time and the region; moreover, they suggest directions for future research.

Uplifting the Race

Uplifting the Race PDF

Author: Kevin K. Gaines

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2012-12-01

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 146960647X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Amidst the violent racism prevalent at the turn of the twentieth century, African American cultural elites, struggling to articulate a positive black identity, developed a middle-class ideology of racial uplift. Insisting that they were truly representative of the race's potential, black elites espoused an ethos of self-help and service to the black masses and distinguished themselves from the black majority as agents of civilization; hence the phrase 'uplifting the race.' A central assumption of racial uplift ideology was that African Americans' material and moral progress would diminish white racism. But Kevin Gaines argues that, in its emphasis on class distinctions and patriarchal authority, racial uplift ideology was tied to pejorative notions of racial pathology and thus was limited as a force against white prejudice. Drawing on the work of W. E. B. Du Bois, Anna Julia Cooper, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Hubert H. Harrison, and others, Gaines focuses on the intersections between race and gender in both racial uplift ideology and black nationalist thought, showing that the meaning of uplift was intensely contested even among those who shared its aims. Ultimately, elite conceptions of the ideology retreated from more democratic visions of uplift as social advancement, leaving a legacy that narrows our conceptions of rights, citizenship, and social justice.

African Nationalism from Apartheid to Post-Apartheid South Africa

African Nationalism from Apartheid to Post-Apartheid South Africa PDF

Author: Ellen WesemŸller

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2005-08-01

Total Pages: 122

ISBN-13: 3898214982

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

With the help of discourse analysis and ideology critique, Ellen Wesemüller establishes a theoretical framework to analyze African nationalism in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. Following the constructivist school of thought, the study adopts the assumption that nations are "imagined communities" which are built on "invented traditions". It shows that historically and analytically, there are two distinct concepts of nationalism: "constitutional" and "ethnic" nationalism. These concepts can be retraced in South Africa where they form the central antagonism of black political thought. The study of post-apartheid African nationalism is placed in its historical perspective by focusing on the major milestones of African National Congress' discourse before and during apartheid. It demonstrates that throughout its history, the ANC was characterized by the rivalry between concepts of "constitutional" and "ethnic" nationalism. While the former concept found its counterpart in Charterism, the latter was adopted by African nationalism. Though the ANC in its majority embraced Charterism, it continually played with the appeal of an exclusive, racial nationalism. The theoretical and historical contextualization of the book allows for the investigation of the various dimensions of current ANC discourse on African nationalism. Wesemüller analyses different concepts of nationalism employed by the ANC and compares these models to those discussed in academic literature. She concludes that in post-apartheid South Africa, the historical dichotomy of Africanist and Charterist nationalism persists within the ANC. While early concepts of nationalism like Mandela's "rainbow nation" and Mbeki's "I am an African" paid tribute to Charterism, the discourses on the "African Renaissance" and Mbeki's "two-nation" address at least leave openings for Africanist interpretations. Furthermore, the analysis shows that nationalism is not only a product of discourse but also one of material conditions. The study provides evidence that it is not only the ANC that hijacks African nationalism in order to mobilize their electorate and push through unpopular policy choices. Also, there are compelling material reasons for some South Africans to adopt a nationalist agenda. This is demonstrated by the new "black" bourgeoisie that mediates the gap between rich and poor as well as black and white. African nationalism in this regard serves to legitimate domination and existing relations of inequality. It affirms an African elite while neither uplifting the majority of African poor nor threatening the material privileges of white South Africans. Lastly, Ellen Wesemüller gives an outlook on the political implications of a resurrected nationalism. The effects can be analyzed according to the two promises of nationalism: superiority over "outsiders" and equality between "insiders". Superiority in post-apartheid South Africa is established over other African countries, immigrants and inner South African groups that are considered "foreign".

What Can and Can't be Said

What Can and Can't be Said PDF

Author: Dell Upton

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2015-01-01

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 0300211759

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"An original study of monuments to the civil rights movement and African American history that have been erected in the U.S. South over the past three decades, this powerful work explores how commemorative structures have been used to assert the presence of black Americans in contemporary Southern society. The author cogently argues that these public memorials, ranging from the famous to the obscure, have emerged from, and speak directly to, the region's complex racial politics since monument builders have had to contend with widely varied interpretations of the African American past as well as a continuing presence of white supremacist attitudes and monuments."--Book jacket.

Lanterna Rally - Theme by Grace Themes