Social Heirarchy and Skin Color among Black Americans

Query From Kriste Lindenmeyer klindenmeyer@tntech.edu 02 Feb 1999

I have a student who is interested in doing an undergraduate level research paper on the history of social hierarchy and skin color among black Americans--especially as it relates to women. He has done several bibliographical searches on miscegenation, race, mulattoes, and beauty. None have been too fruitful. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thank you. I'm stumped.

Responses:

Davis, F. James _Who is Black? One Nation's Definition_ (1991)

Drago, Edmund Lee _Initiative and Paternalism_

Gatewood, Willard _Aristocrats of Color, the Black Elite, 1880-1920.

Haizlip, (Haislip) Shirley Taylor _The Sweeter the Juice_

hooks, bell _Black Looks: Race and Representation

Horne, Lena Biography by Horne's daughter

Lewis, Harold _Yet with a Steady Beat_

McBride, James _The Color of Water_

Rigsby, Gregory _Alexander Crummel: Pioneer in the Pan African Thought_

Russell, Kathy, Midge Hall and Ronald Hall, Eds. _The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color Among African Americans_(1992)

Sandler, Kathe PBS Documentary "A Question of Color", released in the early 1990s.

Townes, Emilie M. _A Troubling in my Soul or Embracing the Spirit: Womanist Perspectives on Hope, Salvation, and Transportation_

West, Dorothy _The Wedding_

Williamson, Joel _New People_

Young, James O. _Black Writers of the 1930s_

Other Suggestions:

Check w./Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, Ph.D. student at Rutgers, working on this topic or close to it.

There was a movie w/Oprah Winfrey called The Wedding. It was on TV recently. Perhaps the staff at Harpo Productions in Chicago can give you some biblio info.

The Second Signs Reader has articles that may be near the subject.