Uncovering the African American Disaporic Experience: Histories, Buried & Local, and Multiple Identities

This paper explores academic memoir, academic press (Cannata, Smith, Haynes, 2017), and the use of saudade as an analytic metaphor for the mixed feelings of longingness and regret, beauty and blight, and mysticism and reality in an educational community of practice. This feeling is used as an interpretive space to reimagine the ethnographic study of community-based literacy practices of an ethnically-diverse group of Charleston, SC teachers and their African-American professor as they explored the African Diaspora, the Middle Passage, Gullah/Geechee culture, literacy and the design of new community spaces for teaching and learning K- 12 students.

A historical case study was conducted to examine the hidden narratives of six African American “Government Girls” during World War II. The purpose of the study was to document the lives and experiences of six women employed by the United States federal government with the goal of contributing to the historical records regarding the role and importance of African American women to the war effort. Oral history demonstrates the impact of women’s organizations, community partnerships, and faith-based organizations. Social Mobility Theory and Black Feminist Thought serve as fundamental theories to understand the lived experiences and legacies of these women.