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Black students are often tasked with negotiating racial microaggressions--subtle, racialized offenses--at historically White colleges and universities. Higher education scholarship has found that when Black students speak up in response to racial microaggressions, they tend to feel overburdened with having to educate the offending party. This article demonstrates how Black students used a more empowering strategy that they called "beasting," where they utilized culturally affirming counternarratives to actively oppose racial microaggressions. In this process, Black students drew upon their own diverse knowledge base to contest and reframe dominant ideologies that stereotyped, dismissed, and devalued their racial group. These counternarratives included: (a) asserting Black intellect; (b) centering Black history, culture and perspectives; and (c) affirming the diversity within Black communities. These culturally affirming counternarratives serve as a powerful form of resistant capital for Black students. Moreover, the university context can facilitate the sharing of these narratives through Black student organizations, ethnic studies courses, and friendship networks. Black students can utilize this resistant capital in the future to navigate other historically White institutions that are critical to social mobility.

In this article, the author describes a section of Stealing Home, a unit she created about ways the homes of people of color have been stolen through "race riots" and "urban renewal" in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Los Angeles' Chavez Ravine; and Portland, Oregon's Albina neighborhood. This is the first of a two-part series about the unit. Through historical documents, novels, videos, and a role play, high school language arts students learn about the racist riot that destroyed the African American section of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921. They turn their understanding into poetry and historical fiction. (Contains 3 resources.)

Since slavery, attempted enclosures upon Black spaces of cultural production and autonomy (i.e. music, language, art) have manifested in various forms. In the context of the post-industrial terrain of urban southern California, the formation of the prison is the dominant model of forced enclosure in the lives of Black people. Moving beyond the physical site of the prison, the conception of the prison regime is utilized to connect how racialized processes emanating from public education are informed by the formation/maintenance of the prison system. In particular, this article addresses the cultural assertions of Blackness made by Black students and how the corresponding attempted enclosure of Black cultural autonomy by the school is undergirded by a history of violence against Black spaces of cultural autonomy. Ethnographic research for this article was conducted at Southeast County High School (SCHS). (Contains 12 notes.)

This article presents an interview with Ronald Takaki, a prolific and respected author and a successful teacher who wrote a number of important histories that explore the cultural diversity of the United States of America, including "From Different Shores: Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America" (1994), "Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans" (1998), and the recently revised "A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America" (2008), a groundbreaking work originally published in 1993. Dr. Takaki taught the first African American history course at the University of California, Los Angeles before developing undergraduate and graduate programs in comparative ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley. An activist as well as a scholar, he frequently appeared on national television to discuss and defend Affirmative Action, immigrant rights, and other cultural diversity initiatives. Dr. Takaki died in May 2009. In the interview, Dr. Takaki spoke not only of his own multicultural background and his interdisciplinary research and teaching approach, but also related some of the little known historical facts and stories he uncovered through his research.

This study seeks to understand the ways nine states represent African Americans within their standards for U.S. History. Previous research on the effects of high-stakes assessment on social studies educators suggests teachers align their instruction with information found in state standards. Therefore, an understanding of the way African Americans are represented in state standards may lead to a better understanding of how teachers portray African American history in their classrooms. The states included in the study, California, Georgia, Indiana, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia, all annually assess students and teachers though end-of-course assessments. For each set of standards, all references to African Americans were coded and then categorized. Additionally, all references to individual African Americans were noted and analyzed for patterns. The results suggest that the states tend to focus on instances and individuals associated with African American oppression or liberation and largely avoid societal and cultural contributions. Therefore, it is suggested that states reframe their standards to include more explicit references to cultural accomplishments of African Americans. (Contains 2 tables.)

Jeremiah B. Sanderson, a free, New Bedford-educated Black man successfully petitioned to get public funding for "colored schools" in the 1850s-1870s in Sacramento, San Francisco and Stockton. Jeremiah Sanderson was one of the most influential spokesmen and educators in the state.

When the author proposed a spring course on major topics in African-American history, drawing a large enrollment was her chief concern. She had previously taught the course under a different title at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a campus with a sizable African-American presence among students and faculty members. She now teaches at a college whose African-American student population is about 2 percent and that continues to feel the impact of California's Proposition 209, which ended affirmative action in public education more than a decade ago. She believes that African-American history is a topic that all students should find intriguing; but without a "built in" audience, she suspected that she would have to rename the course to capture the imagination of a broad spectrum of students. Hoping to draw students caught up in the general excitement of the past year, she changed the title from what had been "Black History, 1619 to the Present" to the "postracial" "Major Topics in African-American History from Slavery to the Presidency." She submitted the course well before November 4, 2008, determined to keep the title regardless of the outcome of the election. And then something profound happened. Barack Obama was elected president. In this article, the author describes how Obama's presidency raises new questions for her African-American history course.

T Starting in 1964, the U.S. federal government under President Lyndon Johnson passed an ambitious reform program that included social security, urban renewal, antipoverty initiatives, and civil rights legislation. In cities like Los Angeles, these reforms fueled urban revitalization efforts in communities affected by economic decline. These reforms closed the gap between local residents and government officials in California and even subsequently brought the city’s African American and Mexican American population into greater political proximity. Looking closely at the impact of the Chicano Movement on the Model Cities Program, a federal initiative designed specifically for urban development and renewal, this article brings the role of U.S. government policy in shaping social justice priorities in Los Angeles, and the U.S. Southwest more broadly, into sharper view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the history of African American settlements in the rural areas of Central California. Emphasis is given to topics such as the development of agricultural colonies in the San Joaquin Valley, African American land tenure and family life, and the growth of the communities of Fairmead, Dos Palos, and Cookseyville.

The article discusses migration issues and racial tensions between African Americans and Southern whites in Los Angeles, California through an examination of the racially charged messages of the Trinity Methodist preacher Bob Shuler and the Ku Klux Klan. It is suggested that Shuler's rhetoric attracted a large number of Southern whites who saw the growing African American middle class during the 1920s as a threat to social stability. The reaction of the African American press to the situation is accessed.

The Zebra Murders were a series of racially charged homicides in San Francisco during the mid-1970s. The crimes, which appeared to be random, built on existing anxiety about violent crime to create an atmosphere of fear in the city. Rumors that the crimes were racially motivated suggested a link to radical politics, only increasing public alarm. This article argues that these combined fears pushed the city to adopt a controversial, unconstitutional procedure to try and end the murders. The responses to the operation reveal that this criminal violence was exacerbating deep cleavages within the San Francisco populace, cleavages that mirrored larger national divisions. Ultimately, a debate developed over how to balance individual civil liberties and public security. The fears surrounding the Zebra murders and other events like them contributed to a growing victims’ rights movement that argued the balance should lean more firmly toward public safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The arrival of tens of thousands of African American migrants during and after World War II dramatically transformed the Northern California cities of Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond and reshaped the politics of California. This article explores their impact on the political economy of these cities and suggests how their experiences presaged the transformation of urban America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Out of what some call America’s first truly multiracial riot in Los Angeles in 1992 was spawned a clarion call from Black newspapers to build an interminority alliance to avert a repeat performance. This article examines whether and how the Los Angeles Sentinel changed its coverage of Black–Asian American relations in the years after 1992. Using Ethnic NewsWatch, the author analyzed 102 articles published from 1993 to 2000 that included some discussion about that connection. Several things stand out: (a) The Sentinel’s reporting for that period almost tripled output from all Black newspapers for 1980-1992; (b) the focus and breadth of coverage changed, from highlighting enmity between Korean (American) merchants and Blacks to emphasizing interminority collaboration and inclusion in a wide range of settings; and (c) rarely noted were intimate relationships and personal ties. The Sentinel provides proof that news organizations can significantly improve their coverage of race relations very quickly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focuses on the history of California during World War II as depicted in the works of writer Chester Himes. Migration of African Americans to regions with more freedom; Emergence of racial animosity and discrimination; Depiction of racism in most of Himes' work.

This article explores the racial/ethnic identities of multiracial Black-Mexicans or “Blaxicans.” In-depth interviews with 12 Blaxican individuals in California reveal how they negotiate distinct cultural systems to accomplish multiracial identities. I argue that choosing, accomplishing, and asserting a Blaxican identity challenges the dominant monoracial discourse in the United States, in particular among African American and Chicana/o communities. That is, Blaxican respondents are held accountable by African Americans and Chicanas/os/Mexicans to monoracial notions of “authenticity.” The process whereby Blaxicans move between these monoracial spaces to create multiracial identities illustrates crucial aspects of the social construction of race/ethnicity in the United States and the influence of social interactions in shaping how Blaxicans develop their multiracial identities.

Racial/ethnic residential segregation has been shown to contribute to violence and have harmful consequences for minority groups. However, research examining the segregation–crime relationship has focused almost exclusively on blacks and whites while largely ignoring Latinos and other race/ethnic groups and has rarely considered potential mediators (e.g., concentrated disadvantage) in segregation–violence relationships. This study uses year 2000 arrest data for California and New York census places to extend segregation–crime research by comparing the effects of racial/ethnic residential segregation from whites on black and Latino homicide. Results indicate that (1) racial/ethnic segregation contributes to both Latino and black homicide, and (2) the effects for both groups are mediated by concentrated disadvantage. Implications for segregation–violence relationships, the racial-invariance position, and the Latino paradox are discussed.

This essay examines some historical questions and cultural constructions surrounding the song Sweet Home Chicago and its composer Robert Johnson. Noting that while the song has enjoyed long life, Johnson's lyric (describing Chicago as a land of California) has not, the essay critiques primitivist readings of Johnson while posing an African American cultural myth-Chicago as promised land of the Great Migration-as the subtext of his puzzling line. Finally, it considers whether mundane-sounding revisions of Johnson's lyric indicate a reduction in Chicago's mythic status, from safe haven to same old place.