“The effeminate boy and his queer counterparts are now central to much queer and transgender theory. Even more, queer kids are increasingly celebrated by the same institutions, for instance psychiatry, that very recently stigmatized them. Although acceptance in this case, like that of any marginalized group, is precarious and contingent on shifting socio-political context, there has been a clear shift towards affirmation.” Read More

“The threat and use of violence as a control strategy are deeply rooted in U.S. racial history. Generations of black Americans have been subjected to intentional inflictions of pain as control measures, through whipping and other means, especially in the southeastern United States, where the violence of enslavement and subsequent Jim Crow era were concentrated.” Read More

“This article examines the meanings of apprenticeship in the Cape colony in the wake of emancipation. It focuses on a small group of white child labourers brought to the Cape from England in the 1830s by a London-based philanthropic organisation, the Children’s Friend Society.” Read More

“Using archival materials from the Domestic Relations Court of New York City, this article traces the conflict between private institutions and the state over responsibility for neglected African American children in the early twentieth century.” Read More

“Using black feminist thought to read the loud silences in the Howard Orphanage and Industrial School’s letters, I argue that the girl’s case shows how orphaned black girls used the ‘written word’ to navigate power relations in the workplace and actively construct their desired kinship networks for survival.” Read More

By Crystal Lynn Webster
This history of black girls demonstrates the ways both the inner lives and material conditions of black girlhood offer richly complex additions to our understanding of American history. Read More