ECDS is celebrating Black History month by highlighting several pieces from our affiliated journals – Southern Spaces, ATL Studies, and the Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation. These collated articles touch on the varied experiences of Black life, ranging from a piece on a cultural arts hub in New Orleans to a piece discussing how Black-owned businesses responded to the Atlanta Race Massacre of 1906. We encourage you to spend some time delving into these pieces and learning more about Black history, particularly amidst the current climate of historical revision and the de-centring of non-white histories.
Below you will find links to these articles, organized by each ECDS affiliated journal.
Southern Spaces
Ashé: Cultural Arts Cornerstone in New Orleans’ Central City, by D. Caleb Smith.
Abstract of the piece: The Ashé Cultural Arts Center is the first institution of its kind founded by and for people of African descent in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Center is located on 1712 Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard in the Central City district. Following a brief introduction, D. Caleb Smith interviews Ashé’s co-founder, Carol Bebelle, and current executive director, Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes, as they discuss the trajectory of the Center from its establishment in 1998.
“Psychiatry in the Wake: Racism and the Asylumed South” by Kylie Smith.
Abstract of the piece: Professor Kylie Smith reviews Mab Segrest’s Administrations of Lunacy: Racism and the Haunting of American Psychiatry at the Milledgeville Asylum (New York: The New Press, 2020) and Wendy Gonaver’s The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840–1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019).
“’When Sunday Comes’”: Gospel Music in the Soul and Hip-Hop Eras, by Claudrena N. Harold.
Abstract of the piece: Weaving insightful analysis into a brief biography of gospel icon John P. Kee, Claudrena N. Harold explores gospel music’s essential place as an outlet for African Americans to express their spiritual and cultural selves. Excerpted from When Sunday Comes: Gospel Music in the Soul and Hip-Hop Eras by Claudrena N. Harold.
“Dancing Around the ‘Glaring Light of Television’: Black Teen Dance Shows in the South” by Matthew F. Delmont.
Abstract of the piece: In this essay, Matthew Delmont examines four programs that brought music and dance to southern and border state television audiences in the 1950s and 1960s. Arguing that television provided creative outlets for some black teens during segregation, Delmont focuses on three black teen shows, The Mitch Thomas Show from Wilmington, Delaware (1955–1958), Teenage Frolics (1958–1983), hosted by Raleigh, North Carolina, deejay J. D. Lewis, and Washington, DC’s Teenarama Dance Party (1963–1970) hosted by Bob King. Delmont also explores Washington, DC’s whites-only program, The Milt Grant Show (1956–1961), to highlight the pronounced color lines that informed the experience of teenage dancers, as well as the home and studio audiences that flocked to these hit shows.
“Separate and Unequal Schools: The Past Is Future” by Steve Suitts.
Abstract of the piece: Steve Suitts reveals an emerging, seismic shift in how southern states in the United States are leading the nation in adopting universal private school vouchers. Suitts warns that this new “school choice” movement will reestablish a dual school system not unlike the racially separate, unequal schools which segregationists attempted to preserve in the 1960s using vouchers.
ATL Studies
“They Trapped Me with Chain and Gun”: Gender and Black Women’s Labor Struggles in 1970s Atlanta, by Augustus Wood.
Abstract of the piece: Even though much of the extant historical scholarship on Atlanta’s development has focused on the centrality of race and racism to the city’s development, most accounts of these dynamics have been focused on the actions and accomplishments of the city’s expansive Black middle-class and elites. In an effort to rectify this, Atlanta native Augustus Wood’s new book, Class Warfare in Black Atlanta: Grassroots Struggles, Power, and Repression under Gentrification, reexamines the history of mid-20th century Atlanta from the perspective of the city’s Black working-class. In this excerpt from the book, Wood tells the story of several key – but little known – uprisings led by working-class Black women in the 1970s, from labor strikes led by workers at Howard Johnson’s and Church’s Chicken to rent strikes by tenants of the Atlanta Housing Authority.
Afro Self-Determinism and the Rise of the Black Mecca, by Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar.
Abstract of the piece: In his recent book America’s Black Capital: How African Americans Remade Atlanta in the Shadow of the Confederacy, Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar reconceptualizes the history of Black Atlanta through the lens of what he calls “Afro-self-determinism”. While similar to Black nationalism in its eschewing of integration with whites as the pinnacle of Black accomplishment, Ogbar distinguishes Afro-self-determinism in that it doesn’t seek to fully separate itself from the United States, but to establish collective Black control over various social institutions. In this excerpt from America’s Black Capital, Ogbar retells the story of Maynard Jackson’s ascension to the Atlanta mayoralty, and its broader significance, through the lens of Afro-self-determinism.
Perseverance: Black Business Response to the Atlanta Race Massacre, by Keith Hollingsworth.
Abstract of the piece: In this piece, Hollingsworth details how Black businesses responded to the 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre, arguing that one of the main legacies of the massacre was the creation of Black business neighborhoods, including Sweet Auburn Ave and West Hunter Street (now Martin Luther King Jr. Drive/Atlanta University Center). Hollingsworth argues the case that Black businesses solidified in these neighbourhoods as a means of protecting themselves against future white mob violence.
Black Women at the Fore: Perry Homes and the Transformation of Tenant Activism in 1960s Atlanta, by Akira Drake Rodriguez.
Abstract of the piece: This piece is excerpted from the third chapter of Diverging Space for Deviants: The Politics of Atlanta’s Public Housing (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2021). In this piece, author Akira Drake Rodriguez examines the role of Black women in tenant association activism and their pursuit for social and spatial justice.
Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation
The Death of Her, By Rhonda White, MSPT.
Rhonda C. White is an adjunct professor in physical therapy and a pediatric physical therapist serving students in a school-based setting. She has worked in both clinical and academic settings, with a strong commitment to advocacy, equity, and ethics. She previously served as a tenured associate professor and Director of Clinical Education at Prairie State College and now serves in leadership roles with the Illinois Physical Therapy Association and the American Board of Physical Therapy Residency and Fellowship Education. In her poem “The Death of Her”, she details the inner agonies of a physical therapist battling an internal “Her”—with imposter syndrome and pressures of academia that tormented her, and few around her even knew existed. Through this beautiful and brave piece, she thanks those precious few who understood—and helped her “scars become superpowers.”
Forthcoming articles from the Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation in the February edition which touch on the Black experience to look out for include:
Unicorn in Motion, By Dawn S. Brown, PT, DPT, EdD.
Dr. Dawn S. Brown, PT, DPT, EdD, OCS, serves as Assistant Chair of Curricular Affairs and Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences at Northwestern University. She has held influential roles, including Commissioner for the National Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Commission for the American Council of Academic Physical Therapy (ACAPT), Co-Chair of the Illinois Physical Therapy Association DEI Committee, and member of ACAPT’s Education Planning and Innovation Committee. In her poem “Unicorn in Motion”, which is to be published later this month in JHR, Dr. Brown speaks to the rarity of seeing individuals that look like her in positions of leadership in the physical therapy profession. Grappling with others’ expectations, she identifies as a unicorn: “…Not horned magic, But hard-earned mastery.” In these few lines, she presents her effect on her clinical world and challenges our paths forward.
A Token Presence: Navigating Underrepresentation in Physical Therapy,by Michael T. Robinson, PT, DPT, DHSc.
Michael T. Robinson, PT, DPT, DHSc is an assistant professor in the Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) Program at Howard University and a board-certified orthopedic clinical specialist. He serves as a founding board member and Membership Committee Chair of the National Association of Black Physical Therapists (NABPT), where he supports initiatives focused on professional belonging, leadership development, and workforce diversity. In his narrative reflection, “A Token Presence: Navigating Underrepresentation in Physical Therapy”, readers learn that as of 2022, Black male physical therapists comprised only 2% of the profession nationwide. Dr. Robinson digs deep to find the reasons why. One main source in his research—and a crucial one going forward—is the personal voices of Black male students and practitioners. This poignant article details the daily challenges men of color face in the profession, and Robinson offers his own recommendations to drive change.
(Links forthcoming).