Category: History

  • Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent or a person who has both black ancestry and white ancestry.  The term may be perceived as pejorative in some cultures and situations.  Its current usage varies greatly. The etymology of the term is uncertain. It may be derived from the Portuguese and…

  • Miscegenation (Latin miscere “to mix” + genus “kind”) is the mixing of different racial groups, that is, marrying, cohabiting, having sexual relations and having children with a partner from outside one’s racially or ethnically defined group. The term “miscegenation” has been used since the nineteenth century to refer to interracial marriage and interracial sex, and…

  • Half-caste  is a term used to describe people of mixed race or ethnicity. Caste comes from the Latin castus, meaning pure, and the derivative Portuguese and Spanish casta, meaning race. The term originates from the Indian caste system, where a person of ‘lesser’ or half-caste would be deemed to be of a ‘lower class’. While…

  • From Wikipedia: Loving v. (versus) [Commonwealth of] Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court by a [unanimous] 9-0 vote declared [on 1967-06-12] Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute, the “Racial Integrity Act of 1924“, unconstitutional, thereby overturning Pace v. Alabama (1883) and ending all race-based legal restrictions…

  • Portraits of the New Negro Woman: Visual and Literary Culture in the Harlem Renaissance (review) Legacy Volume 26, Number 1 (2009) pages 182-184 E-ISSN: 1534-0643 Print ISSN: 0748-4321 DOI: 10.1353/leg.0.0069 Martha Jane Nadell, Associate Professor Brooklyn College of the City University of New York Cherene Sherrard-Johnson opens her provocative and intriguing book, Portraits of the…

  • The Tragic Mulatta Plays the Tragic Muse Victorian Literature and Culture Volume 37, Issue 2 (June 2009) pages 501-522 DOI: 10.1017/S1060150309090317 Kimberly Snyder Manganellia, Assistant Professor of 19th-Century British and American Literature Clemson University Marie Lavington, the runaway octoroon slave in Charles Kingsley‘s little-read novel Two Years Ago (1857), makes this declaration of independence in…

  • The Browning of America and the Evasion of Social Justice (Review) by Ronald R. Sundstrom SUNY Press 2008, 190pp., $24.95 (pbk.) ISBN: 9780791475867 Notre Dame Philisophical Reviews 2009-06-29 Reviewed by Lucius T. Outlaw (Jr.) Vanderbilt University The United States is undergoing the most profound demographic changes in the country’s history so that in a few…

  • “Our Duty to Conserve”: W. E. B. Du Bois’s Philosophy of History in Context South Atlantic Quarterly Volume 108, Number 3 (2009) pages 519-540 DOI: 10.1215/00382876-2009-006 Robert Bernasconi, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy Pennsylvania State University When restored to its historical context, W. E. B. Du Bois‘s “The Conservation of Races” emerges less as…

  • Speaking Up: Mixed Race Identity in Black Communities Journal of Black Studies Volume 39, Number 3 (January 2009) pages 434-445 DOI: 10.1177/0021934706297875 Tru Leverette University of North Florida, Jacksonville Within Black communities, individuals of mixed Black/White parentage have faced diverse reactions, ranging from elevation to scorn. These reactions have often been based on the oppressions…

  • Mixing It Up: Early African American Settlements in Northwestern Ohio Journal of Black Studies Volume 39, Number 6 (July 2009) pages 924-936 DOI: 10.1177/0021934707305432 Jill E. Rowe, Assistant professor, African American studies Virginia Commonwealth University Prior to the 19th century, African American settlers founded a number of productive communities in northwestern Ohio.  During this time…