The Western Journal of Black Studies

Volume 20, Issue 1

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Swimming Against the Tide: A Study of Prospective Teachers' Attitudes Regarding Cultural Diversity and Urban Teaching
Eileen Shultz, Kelley Neyhart, and U. Mae Reck

This study assessed 300 prospective teachers to determine their attitudes and beliefs concerning cultural diversity. It was concluded that, given the cultural attitudes, beliefs, and perspectives with which teacher education students entered their respective programs, additional emphasis in multicultural education was needed to assist them in gaining the knowledge and attitudes they need to teach in a rapidly changing society. What is ultimately necessary is a variety of experiences that bring preservice teachers into contact with cultural groups different from their own. These experiences should encompass both school and community and be reflective in nature, starting with present beliefs.

 

A Case Study of Social Stratification: An Afrocentric Edification
James L. Conyers, Jr.

 

Anglo-American "Realist" Theories of International Politics:
An Afrocentric Critique
Abdoulaye S. M. Saine

Anglo-American "realist" based theories of World politics have been critiqued for their androcentrism and racism by feminist and Afrocentrist scholars respectively. These Scholars reject simplistic notions of objectivity, rationality, and neutrality of methods. This article critiques and contributes to the Afrocentric debate and what it suggests for world politics in the post-cold war year. It is argued that a serious engagement between the realist and Afrocentric traditions can yield important insights rather than the maintenance of the eurocentric model whose claims about science, objectivity, policy and relevance have served as standards of political and scholarly judgement. Similarly, Afrocentricity must be sufficiently rigorous in both its conceptual and methodological tools in order to avert the risk of it being dismissed as sheer ideology.

 

Separated Black Women: Do They Reconcile with Their Husbands?
Howard Wineberg

This study, using 1987–1988 National Survey of Families and Households data, examines the prevalence and characteristics of ever-separated Black women who attempted a marital reconciliation of their first marriage. Marital reconciliations are quite common as 45% of the separated women attempt a reconciliation. Women with children and those who are in marriages in which either spouse changed religion after marrying have a significantly increased liklihood of attempting a reconciliation. These findings provide some support for this thesis that those who have the most invested in the marriage or the greatest reliance on the relationship are the most likely to attempt a reconciliation. The implictions of these findings are discussed.

 

The Circle and the Line:
Speculations on the Developmet of African American Vernacular Dancing

Katrina Hazzard-Donald

 

African American Golfers in the Age of Jim Crow
Marvin P. Dawkins

The exclusion of African Americans from participation in professional sports in White America during the period between the Plessy and Brown cases (Jim Crow Age) created a world of Black sports that has only recently begun to receive the recognition it deserves. However, much of this attention has focused on the three major sports-baseball, football and basketball. This paper examines the origin and early involvement of African American in the sport of gold through the lenses of Black press. Contrary to the popularly held notion that Black response to exclusion, African Americans created organizations which promoted participation, held tournaments, and established a community of both amateur and professional golfers, some of whom attained national recognition and aid the foundation for later generations.

 

Redefining the Text: The Spiritual in James Weldon Johnson's Along This Way
Alphonso Hawkins

James Weldon Johnson and his autobiography, Along This Way, reconstructs a persona that has characteristics of the Spiritual. The Spiritual, created by African American slaves, is a song of deliverance reinforced with the armor of strength and survival that endures and triumphs amid oppressive and harsh conditions. Its most enduring quality is its ability to confront inhumanity with love and forgiveness. This allows its "singer" to walk circumspectly in the world and always be aware of its purifying armor.

James Weldon Johnson reminds us that he would always be on guard against the forces that would chip away at the spirituality that the Spirituals taught him. He would not allow anyone to "spiritually whip" him. His mother taught him and his brother, J. Rosamond, songs that instilled dignity, integrity, and identity. The music became a part of the author whenever he confronted Jim Crow and its attendant forces. He would always shield himself in the armor of the Spiritual and triumph against hate. His father, too, gave him the "spiritual" characteristics of honesty and a will to serve God through His agency in humanity. The precept and example of a father, mother, and Atlanta University equipped the young Johnson to become the writer, attorney, U.S. Consul that serves humanity. This is the Spiritual's lasting qualities to survive against the forces set out to spiritually whip one into submission that self destroys and impairs personal and universal human progress.

 

 

 

 

 

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