What's New in the Oxford African American Studies Center
What's New: October 2011
For the October 2011 update, the editors of the Oxford African American Studies Center have added 12 new primary source documents with accompanying commentary covering folk stories, oral narratives, and songs by notable African American writers. Among these documents is a short piece titled "On Being Crazy" by W.E.B. Du Bois, which satirizes the ways in which racism infiltrates even the most mundane activities, as well as the first antislavery pamphlet written by an African American, "A Dialogue Between a Virginian and an African Minister". Please see below for the full list of newly added primary source documents.
This update also includes 124 new online-only biographies from the African American National Biography project. Among the new biographies are nine individuals who achieved high rank in the State Department in the late 19th/early 20th century, including Lemuel Walker Livingston (consul to Haiti), Henry Furniss (consul to Brazil), and John Taylor Williams (consul to Sierra Leone). Other notable additions include Wayland Rudd, the first black actor to play Othello in Russian; pop culture commentator and Georgetown University professor, Michael Eric Dyson; and Hannah Till, the cook for George Washington's camp at Valley Forge. These brand new entries are only available through the Oxford African American Studies Center.
Intended to chart some of the most accomplished African American families
while highlighting the reference resources available in the Oxford African
American Studies Center, a new feature called 'Family Trees' has been added
to the Learning Center. Surmounting the numerous challenges presented to the
study of African American family history by the legacy of slavery, these trees
use oral tradition, census reports, plantation records, and ship logs, as
well as advances in DNA research, to piece together a family's ancestry. The
October update includes a Family Tree on the Mossells, a prominent Philadelphia
family.
A Guest Editorial by Steven Marantz, discussing the subject matter of his book The Rhythm Boys of Omaha Central has been added, as well as a letter from the editor, titled "From the Civil War to Civil Rights" in which Henry Louis Gates Jr. discusses one of his ancestors who was a Civil War veteran and later a civil rights advocate.
There are two updates to the Learning Center including a lesson plan, titled
"Language and Controversy", on dealing with the politics of the
so-called N-word, as well as a new Teacher Resource page showing how educators
can use popular songs to illustrate the history of the Civil Rights Movement.
Content will be added to this resource for each update, so please visit again
and feel free to contact us with any suggestions.
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Primary Source Documents Added in October 2011
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Dialogue Between a Virginian and an African Minister (1810)
An Indignation Dinner (1915)
Letter from James McCune Smith to Gerrit Smith (1846)
New Orleans Superstitions (1886)
On Being Crazy (1923)
Poor Lazarus (1926)
Reminiscences of Sylvia Dubois (1883)
Speech Delivered at the Hall of Commerce, London (1851)
The Devils Marriage (1894)
This Wealth Problem (1852)
Twelve Years a Slave, Chapter 6 (1853)
When Malindy Sings (1903)
Focus On
In addition to our ongoing editorial update program, the Oxford African American Studies Center's editors commission and publish bi-monthly a publicly-available Focus On feature, designed to provide insights into topics of current and historical relevance.
Past Focus On features have included Jazz Greats, the March on Washington, Kwanzaa, Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Art and Artists, Women and Literature, Hip Hop's Early Influences, and Blacks in Politics. Features can include a specially-commissioned essay by a renowned scholar, as well as photo essays illustrating the events and topics covered. Focus On features and their related articles are free to the public for two months, and the featured essays and photo essays remain publicly available on the site.
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