Mixed Race Studies

UNF professor explores the impact of skin tone on the everyday lives of African-American women

The Florida Times-Union
2016-01-18

Rhema Thompson

JeffriAnne Wilder always knew African-Americans came in many shades. She saw it in her own family, from her light-skinned older sister to her two dark-skinned brothers. Her complexion fell somewhere in the middle.

“I saw the variation at home, but I didn’t place any value on it,” she recalled.

Around age 10 that began to change. She noticed the light-skinned girls in her predominantly black Cleveland elementary class seemed to be treated differently. Other students seemed enamored by their creamy complexions and wavy hair.

Decades later, that sentiment hit closer to home when she became pregnant with her daughter.

“I had lots of people just assume because my ex-husband is biracial and light-skinned with green eyes that she was going to be light-skinned, too,” she said. “ ‘Oh, you’re going to have the prettiest daughter. She’s going to be so pretty. She’s going to be light and blah, blah, blah,’ and I remember telling people ‘What happens if she’s not light-skinned? What if she ends up like me?’ ”

Now, an associate sociology professor at the University of North Florida and director of the school’s new Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnic Relations, Wilder is sharing her observations and the experiences of 66 other black women in her first published book “Color Stories.”…

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University of North Florida Presents James Weldon Johnson Symposium

University of North Florida
Press Release
2012-03-29

Joanna Norris, Associate Director of Public Relations

he University of North Florida presents the James Weldon Johnson Symposium from noon to 4 p.m. Thursday, April 5, and from noon to 5 p.m. Friday, April 6, in the UNF Student Union Auditorium, Building 58W, Room 2704, in celebration of the centennial anniversary of the publication of James Weldon Johnson’s “Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.”

The symposium will feature student and faculty performances, poetry readings as well as music and dance performances. The keynote speaker will be Dr. JeffriAnne Wilder, assistant professor in the UNF Department of Sociology and Anthropology. She will discuss “Black Americans and Colorism in the 21st Century,” while UNF student Erin Mulkey will perform “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” a song written by Johnson and is considered to be the Negro national anthem.

Additionally, there will be faculty and student presentations addressing the life of Johnson as well as his Jacksonville origins and connections. The event will conclude at 4 p.m. Friday, April 6, with a performance by the renowned McIntosh County Shouters, a group that performs the “Southeastern Ring Shout,” which is among the oldest surviving African-American performance traditions on the North American continent.

For more information, click here.