Mixed Race Studies

“The Case Was Very Black against” Her: Pauline Hopkins and the Politics of Racial Ambiguity at the “Colored American Magazine”

American Periodicals
Volume 16, Number 1 (2006)
pages 52-73

Sigrid Anderson Cordell, Librarian for History, American Literature, and American Culture
University of Michigan

When Pauline Hopkins’s short story. “Talma Gordon,” appeared in the October 1900 issue of the Colored American Magazine, it ran opposite a photograph of a young smiling African-American boy balancing an American flag across one arm with the other arm raised in a salute (Figure 1). By linking the black child and the American flag, this picture, entitled “The Young Colored American.” attempts to align U.S. interests with those of the black community and reflects the magazine’s aim to recover the role of African Americans in American history. The figure of the child evokes both a sense of optimism and an historical link to America’s infancy. Likewise, the photograph of the  “Young Colored American” echoes the revisionist themes of “Talma Gordon.” a story which calls into question the hagiography of the American elite and instead celebrates the figure of a mixed-race woman who has been scorned by her white father, a scion of New England society. In this story. Hopkins reflects the Colored American Magazine’s mission to “perpetuat[e] … a history of the negro race” and re-write the triumphal narratives of traditional American history. As I will argue, however, the interweaving of gender and racial politics in the narrative structure of this story both reflects and complicates the politics of the journal itself.

Throughout her literary career. Pauline Hopkins (1859-1930) deliberately incorporated politics into her work and claimed a voice for African Americans, particularly African-American women. Rather than publishing in the mainstream literary journals such as Harper’s and the Atlantic that dominated the American cultural scene at the turn of the twentieth century, Hopkins wrote for periodicals specifically targeted to the black community, such as the Colored American Magazine. What sets her fiction and journalism apart from that of her female contemporaries—both black and white—is her blunt depiction…

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A Jazz Celebration – Remembering the Life of Philippa Schuyler

Southbank Centre
London, England
The Clore Ballroom
2012-01-27, 17:30Z

The Abram Wilson Quartet

Charismatic New Orleans trumpeter and vocalist Abram Wilson debuts original music inspired by the life of the Harlem born, mixed race classical piano prodigy, Philippa Schuyler, who died tragically young in 1967.

Wilson and his band of musicians explore new compositional ground with music ranging from the roughest blues to the most melodic swing. Soulful trumpet playing complements the vocals as Wilson tells the sensitive story of an extraordinary and gifted musician’s troubled life.

With a band featuring Alex Davies (bass), Dave Hamblett (drums) and Reuben James (piano), the multi-award winning Wilson has created a unique style of melodic compositions that swing and groove. His sound is reminiscent of Freddie Hubbard, Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis.

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The Long Shadow of the British Empire: The Ongoing Legacies of Race and Class in Zambia

Palgrave Macmillan
2012-01-03
304 pges
13.800 x 8.250 inches, includes 10 pgs illus
ISBN: 978-0-230-34018-3, ISBN10: 0-230-34018-0

Juliette Bridgette Milner-Thornton, Adjunct Research Fellow
Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

The Long Shadow of the British Empire explores the lived experiences of formerly colonized people in the privacy of their homes, communities, workplaces, and classrooms, and the associations they created from these social interactions and the enduring legacies of their relationships. It examines the centrality of gender and social identity in the formation of non-western people in the British Empire more generally and Northern Rhodesia specifically. Combining anthropological and autoethnographical historical methods, it describes the social, economic, political, and educational disadvantages Eurafricans—more commonly known as ‘Coloured’ in Zambia—were subjected to on account of their mixed heritage and the legacies of these racist practices in their present-day lives.

Table of Contents

• White Men’s Visitations
• The Long Shadow of the British Empire
• Bodily Inscriptions and Colonial Legitimizations
• The Half-Caste Education Debate
• Imperial Networks in a Transnational Context
• Coloreds’ Status in Northern Rhodesia
• The Fault of Our European Fathers
• To Be or Not to Be: Creating Coloredness in the 1950s