Month: December 2011

  • To the whites, all Africans who were not of pure blood were gens de couleur [people of color]. Among themselves, however, there were jealous and fiercely-guarded distinctions: “griffes, briques, mulattoes, quadroons, octoroons, each term meaning one degree’s further transfiguration toward the Caucasian standard of physical perfection.”1 Alice Dunbar-Nelson, “People of Color in Lousiana: Part I,”…

  • Intimacy and Inequality: Manumission and Miscegenation in Nineteenth-Century Bahia (1830-1888) University of Nottingham April 2010 428 pages Jane-Marie Collins Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Hispanic and Latin American Studies This thesis proposes a new paradigm for understanding the historical roots of the myth of racial democracy…

  • The title of a possible discussion of the Negro in Louisiana presents difficulties, for there is no such word as Negro permissible in speaking of this State. The history of the State is filled with attempts to define, sometimes at the point of the sword, oftenest in civil or criminal courts, the meaning of the…

  • Tiffany Rae Reid pens first book as a guide for raising biracial children phillyBurbs.com 2011-12-18 Naila Francis, Staff Writer At first, there were the looks, brazenly curious, speculative, and in Briety McKeon’s eyes, even judgmental. Who was the little girl beside her? The one with the warm, honeyed tint to her skin, the darker, curlier…

  • Narrative Miscegenation: “Absalom, Absalom!” as Naturalist Novel, Auto/Biography, and African-American Oral Story Journal of Narrative Theory Volume 31, Number 2 (Summer, 2001) pages 155-179 DOI: 10.1353/jnt.2011.0080 Alex Vernon, Associate Professor of English Hendrix College, Conway, Arkansas Charles Darwin’s evolutionary ideas, especially as disseminated by Herbert Spencer, profoundly affected literary criticism at the end of the…

  • Between Black and White: Attitudes Toward Southern Mulattoes, 1830-1861 The Journal of Southern History Volume 45, Number 2 (May, 1979) pages 185-200 Robert Brent Toplin, Professor of History University of North Carolina, Wilmington The documents of slavery—laws, narratives speeches, and political tracts—contain abundant references to “Negroes” and “mulattoes.” By the standards of antebellum America, the…

  • The Anatomy of Grey: A Theory of Interracial Convergence College of Law Faculty Scholarship Paper 74 January 2008 56 pages Kevin Maillard, Associate Professor of Law Syracuse University Janis L. McDonald, Professor of Law Syracuse University This article offers a theory of racial identity divorced from biological considerations. Law fails to recognize the complexity of…

  • Passing, segregation, and assimilation: How Nella Larsen changed the “Passing” novel University of Texas, El Paso December 2010 105 pages Publication Number: AAT 1483825 ISBN: 9781124390468 Vivian Maguire A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at El Paso in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree…

  • Negro Genius—Reviewed work(s): The Journal of American Folklore Volume 18, Number 71 (October-December, 1905) pages 319-322 NEGRO GENIUS. As a dispatch from Washington, D. C., the “Evening Transcript” (Boston, Mass.) of February 18, 1905, published the following concerning the investigations of Mr. Daniel Murray: – “Daniel Murray, for many years an assistant in the Library…

  • Not keeping up appearances? Mixed race Asian Americans and the use of racial language University of Utah December 2009 76 pages Paul Charles Humbert-Fisk A thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science There has been a movement to proclaim…