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This paper examines the challenges that African Americans face teaching predominantly white classes at the tertiary level, and argues that these challenges can be resolved by establishing strong ties between students and teachers. While it is largely black faculty who incur the costs of this relationship building, the paper notes that they probably are not the only beneficiaries. White students are likely to benefit as well, as is society at large. The paper’s analysis suggests that black faculty face work that is outside the scope of what white faculty must do. Such work can be viewed as another dimension of the burden of delivering a “hidden curriculum” for their predominately white institutions of employment (Brayboy, Journal of Black Studies 34: 72–86, 2003). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter of a police officer (Oakland, CA) in September 1968. He was sentenced to 2 to 15 years in prison. For 22 months, he was incarcerated at California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo, CA under 'lock-up'-a system which gave him very limited interaction with the general prison population. During this time, Newton had no direct contact with members or leaders of the Black Panther Party. Furthermore, he was restricted to ten persons on his visiting list, nine of whom had to be members of his immediate family. The author of this paper was the tenth person on Newton's visiting list. For the entire period of his incarceration, I visited with Newton almost every Friday from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Following each visit, I would record a detailed memoir of our discussions, the general circumstances in the prison, and my reflections on everything that had transpired. This paper discusses the 22 months Huey P. Newton was in California Men's Colony. It describes how we organized our sessions so the conversations would be of value to him during the following week. It also includes a description of some of the major ideas we shared, including how Newton developed some of his decisions about the Black Panther Party as well as his personal life. Finally, the paper includes my own observations about Newton and how he managed his life as an inmate 'lock-up' in a maximum security prison. Newton was released in August 1970 following the reversal of his conviction by the California Appellate Court. He died in 1989. He was 47 years old. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African American faculty constitute a small number of faculty members who teach at predominantly White colleges and universities. Although their presence within these institutions is beneficial for a number of reasons, they often face many challenges on various levels. In this paper the authors address the physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, social and legal concerns faced by African American faculty who teach at majority institutions. Recommendations for thriving in these environments are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sports cards may seem to be of little interest to social scientists, but sports cards and card collecting can be a rich and unique source of data for examining the social world. They reveal information not only about those who collect them, but about the society and social conditions under which they are produced. This paper examines a very unique numbering system developed by the Topps Chewing Gum Company (Topps) to differentiate status among the players appearing on the cards in its annual football sets. The system Topps developed assigned a number to each card that designated a player’s placement in a set, while simultaneously creating a hierarchical ordering among the players, purportedly based on their performance. Was the ranking of players in the numbering system truly based on performance or on other criteria, such as race? The findings of this study suggest that player position, and to a lesser degree his on-the-field performance, not race, was the main determinant of where he was located in the card set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on interview data provided by 230 black males in America. Three important concepts—emasculation, dehumanization, and inferioritization are used in this work to characterize the outcome of the socialization process for black males. The theoretical orientation includes the structural-functional relationship of the socialization process to the larger society; with the primary emphasis on self-esteem. Early family life socialization does not produce significant differences in interpretations of self and the world in later life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the epistemological foundations of black sociology. When the oppression of a people extends to the dissolution of their primary institutions it embodies fundamental, existential group concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For some people of African descent functioning within social situations of diverse political perspectives, openly celebrating the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States adversely affects the social climate. Through an auto-ethnographic approach, this article seeks to uncover the factors that prompt Black Obama-admirers to self-monitor (Snyder, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 30:526–537, ) in social contexts of polarized public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing sociological literature includes a dearth of inquiries into the establishment and development of sociology at predominately Black institutions. This exclusion may tacitly imply to neophyte, intermediary and senior sociologists that these academic units did not offer any substantive contributions to sociology during its formative years in this nation. The primary objective of this endeavor is to examine the establishment and development of the Fisk University Department of Sociology in such a manner that could, at a minimum, extend the current literature on sociology at predominately Black institutions and, at best, produce findings that place the contributions of this unit within the cannon of significant contributors to the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the factors that contribute to African American males successfully completing a baccalaureate degree. Employing a qualitative research design, the author conducted focus group interviews with African American male graduate students ( n = 11). Participants identified four factors as being significant contributors to their successful completion of a baccalaureate degree: (1) having an epiphany about the importance of higher education; (2) having access to the resources needed to attend and persist in an institution of higher education; (3) having a mentor, and (4) being resilient when faced with obstacles. Implications for institutions of higher education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of sociology is an exciting subfield of the discipline of sociology that, of late, has sought to include numerous African Americans into its master narrative. Unfortunately, I am painfully aware that many of the newer works contain many omissions; are often uncritical; and often are not thoroughly researched. This essay calls attention to these highly-charged and explosive mine fields that prevent the full inclusion of progressive Africana politics in sociology’s controversial history. None-the-less, I am compelled to confess that with the proper nurturing, that is, with the rich input of African American and African Diaspora studies, we will eventually achieve the fruition of an ecumenical and diverse history of sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]