African American studies

Project on the History of Black Writing

Overview

The Project on the History of Black Writing is a research unit in the Department of English within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. HBW has been in the forefront of research and inclusion efforts in higher education since its founding in 1983 at the University of Mississippi, Oxford. HBW is committed to literary recovery work in Black studies; innovative scholarship, book history and digital humanities; professional development and curriculum transformation; and public literacy programming.

“a black diamond among thim American wifes”

Overview

The Kansas State Historical Society holds notebooks containing a handful of original unpublished dramas by New York playwright Kate Edwards Swayze (1834-62), author of Ossawattomie Brown.; or The Insurrection at Harper’s Ferry (1859). One of these is an anti-slavery play that revises George Colman’s Inkle and Yarico (1787) to tell the story of a White Southerner who falls in love with the African woman he seeks to enslave.

Emmett Till Memory Project

Overview

The Emmett Till Memory Project is your complete guide to the legacy of Till’s murder. The app takes users to the most important sites in the Mississippi Delta and beyond. At each site, the app provides expert-vetted narratives, access to relevant archival documents, and a collection of historic and contemporary photographs. The ETMP teaches users what happened at each site in 1955 and how the sites have been commemorated since 1955.

Migration Stories

Overview

African immigration to the United States has grown rapidly over the past three decades with more than 1.5 million sub-Saharan Africans now residing in the United States. Close to 10,000 African immigrants (and their American-born children) live today in the metropolitan centers of Kansas City, Lawrence, Topeka, Emporia, Wichita, and Garden City.