Alliances between members of the transgender community and the feminist community were slow to form, as the groups clashed over definitions of womanhood and experiences of gender oppression. Although trans people saw the value in forming alliances with feminists to fight gender oppression, feminists did not recognize the parallels between the groups. The very ideas that could have provided a base for coalition-building, including gender-based discrimination, access to employment, and gender violence, instead divided the groups. Sexual orientation further complicated coalition-building, as many cis lesbians questioned the gender identities of trans lesbians, while some trans lesbians believed cis lesbians were their natural allies. Through illuminating the shared struggles that feminists and trans people faced and the prejudices that inhibited coalition-building from the 1970s through the 1990s, this essay suggests the value and limits of transgender and feminist partnerships.
My research aims to better understand the federal government’s role in addressing educational disparities by studying the impact of two of LBJ’s Great Society policy programs, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, on the desegregation of public schools in Rural Mississippi. It examines the state's resistance to integration from Brown v. Board of Education to the mid-1960s to analyze the structural factors that delayed integration and then moves into studying both the motives behind the policies and their implementation in Rural Mississippi. Ultimately, I found that the desegregation plans the federal government prescribed, many of which only called for “Freedom of Choice” or only desegregated two grades, were ineffective. Reasons for this include historical structural barriers, a lack of manpower in Washington, D.C. actually to enforce integration, and too much delegation of authority to the Mississippi State Office of Education. This resulted in the misallocation and misuse of millions of dollars that were intended to address rural poverty. While these Great Society programs began the process of desegregation in rural Mississippi schools after years of delays, which was no small feat, they were largely unsuccessful in achieving their goals, and educational disparities still dominate education in the state today.
Through the early 1970s, Ventura County, California, witnessed an unprecedented rise in Ku Klux Klan activity. While earlier incarnations of the Klan predominantly targeted Mexican, male farmworkers, this latest iteration expanded their scope to target a growing population of people of color in the area. As their attacks and local presence increased, their actions became widely publicized with local newspapers rushing to print their stories. Reporters regularly worked with local Klan leaders in their publications, from including short statements to publishing entire interviews. Through the work of local and national newspapers, the group’s intentions and ideologies became well-documented and integrated into social discourse, leading to a distinct naturalization from the mainstream media. The Klan simultaneously received routine empowerment through the actions of local and federal institutions. Despite the Klan’s notorious reputation, the government legitimized them as an organization by granting them permits to put on public displays of hate and allowing them to hold mass gatherings. This paper examines these ways that the Klan gained power through an analysis of their treatment by the mainstream media throughout the late 20th century. It further juxtaposes their press coverage and institutional treatment to that of anti-racist groups in the area, revealing an intersection of Klan power. While there is a distinct emphasis on the Oxnard Klan Riot of 1978, a core event in California nativist history, this paper’s focus expands across numerous cities in Southern California to uncover patterns of societal integration.
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War sparked a wide-spanning and enthusiastic source of support for Ethiopia amongst African Americans. Black Americans held a deep-rooted political and spiritual connection with the African country, embracing Ethiopianism and perceiving the country as a symbol of Black nationalism while also using the war in Ethiopia to exemplify anti-colonialism rhetoric. Many believed that in supporting Ethiopia, African Americans were also protecting a crucial part of their identities. Support efforts were characterized by the foundation of aid organizations, charity drives, public speaking events, and protests; black periodicals' role in generating this support has been relatively obscure. This research essay attempts to analyze the impact black periodicals played in the African American protest of fascist Italy’s aggressions in Ethiopia. By examining the writings of famed black authors from Marcus Garvey to Joel Augustus Rogers, the first-hand accounts of volunteer aviator John Robinson, advertisements of protests, fundraisers, and cablegram messages from Ethiopia’s government to audiences in the United States, this essay argues that black newspapers played a foundational role in a multitude of ways that influenced black liberation in the mid-1930s. In analyzing these periodicals, the essay further argues that despite the U.S. government’s isolationist policies, the reaction of African Americans during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War counteracts with the assumption that the United States was strictly supportive of non-interventionism during events of early pre-World War II fascist aggressions and black Americans should be included in the discussion regarding the landscape of American politics before the United States official entry into the war.
Historians have extensively documented the defections of communists and other members of the Japanese political left to imperialist and nationalist causes from the mid-1930s through the Second World War. Previous scholarship has focused on the role of the Kōza-ha and Nōro-ha factions of Japanese communists at the turn of the 1930s within the overarching intellectual history of modern Japan, or on aspects of leftist thought at the time with clear connections to later turns to imperialism. Research has highlighted fringe theories and aspects of mainline leftist politics that appear to foreshadow the rightward turn. However, emphasis on the flaws in the Japanese left constructs a “slippery slope” narrative of inevitable defection and obscures other aspects of their ideology. This paper addresses the extent to which this ideological and political turn can be explained within the two factions of Japanese communists through analyzing their approaches to imperialism and nationalism. Drawing on Japanese language communist periodicals and party newspapers, analysis reveals strong anti-imperialist rhetoric and Leninist theoretical complexity in both major factions that resist the contemporary rise in nationalism and imperialist apologia in leftist circles. This article argues that the turn to imperialism cannot be easily explained through theoretical failings or inevitable subsumption into Japanese nationalism in the pre-WWII era, and that further research into the rhetoric and theories of the Japanese pre-war Left can complicate the “slippery slope” narrative.
This paper comprises two parts: in the first, I analyze how the state utilizes reparations to perpetuate their antiblack and imperialist violence. I closely read Japanese American reparation testimonies, testimony guidelines, and other documents to argue for Japanese American reparations as a site for not representing truth but producing it. Drawing primarily on the works of The Honorable Sylvia Wynter, I show that the state imposes a temporal structure on Japanese Americans' experiences to engulf them within the surrounding antiblack and neoliberal model minority myth. My paper then turns to the praxis and speeches of Yuri Kochiyama to understand modes of experiencing that contest the state’s imposition. I argue that reparations and experiencing the past are not temporally stable, and by reading her diary entries to her biography, I demonstrate that her experience of the past shifts throughout her growing interaction with revolutionary politics. I trace Kochiyama’s subjectivity across various social and political spaces, such as the black nationalist Republic of New Afrika and the Asian Americans for Action. By analyzing Kochiyama’s reparations testimony and how she contests the state’s imposition of time and the model minority myth, I argue that Kochiyama can help reimagine reparations beyond the state’s time.
The Severan Dynasty of Ancient Rome (AD 193-235) is in part known for the increased involvement of its females, the Julias Domna, Maesa, and Mamaea, in the politics of the empire as compared to previous imperial dynasties. By examining the involvement of the Julias Maesa and Mamaea in Alexander Severus’ reign, I seek through this paper to examine what this involvement looked like, why it took certain forms, and what those forms can tell us about Roman society of the time more broadly. I used Herodian’s early 3rd century History of the Roman Empire and the early 4th century collection of biographies termed the Historia Augusta in doing so, and large sections of this paper discuss the issues with these sources and how they need to be read into in order to gather accurate information about the events they discuss.
During the turn of the century, the island of Zanzibar experienced profound changes. Previously ruled by the sultanate of Oman, the territory was now a protectorate of the British Empire. Although the sultan remained, Arab elites were now scrambling to hold onto authority and influence. In accordance with their increasing power, the British slowly trudged toward abolition on the island. However, not all experienced liberation, specifically concubines. Various discourses emerged about free and forced relationships. Such discourses were rigidly marked along gender and ethnic lines. Correspondence between British colonial officials and the memoirs of Salamah bint Saïd, daughter of a sultan, contain insight into perceptions of concubines and consensual relationships. Scrutinizing these texts illustrates the agendas behind each narrative, and why they were promulgated. However, the voices of those subjected to such discourse are silent in the historical record. Zanzibari women, and the stories of their own relationships and experiences as concubines are largely overlooked and unsearched for. This work looks at the impact of ethnicity, status, and gender upon discourses. It argues that by closely examining colonial documents and Zanzibari love songs, the stories of women can be uncovered. By revealing these perspectives, harmful narratives that pervade the historiography can be supplanted.
