connections between "AlabamaNorth" and Brazil

Page from Kimberley Phillips' study on black urban Cleveland.

As I prepped for this coming Monday's class, I was struck by Kimberley Phillips' thoughts about an image appearing in her study on African Americans in Cleveland. In her book, which is this Monday's reading, Phillips captures how the image tells a story about the migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North during the first half of the twentieth century. She was especially drawn to the African American man who surfaces as a sort of pedestal in this image, and thus this story (as if the accomplishment of the militant African American working class she describes was entirely dependent on masculine strength). This drawing, which is housed at Cleveland's Western Reserve Historical Society, made me think of the Afro-Brazilian civil rights posters recently critiqued by the students in this class for an April 23 exhibit at the University of Alabama. Like the Afro-Brazilian posters, the image here shores up the gains to be had when an oppressed group unites to create new change. But, unlike the Afro-Brazilian posters, this sketch does not draw attention to the degree to which African American women helped create change in Cleveland (see one example of the way women are included in the Afro Brazilian story in the image to the right of this blog). The students will learn more about the gender issue as it relates to black struggle and other things including the formation of the Future Outlook League, an organization that was active in Cleveland between the years 1935 and 1952. Some of its members were migrants were from Birmingham and Bessemer, Alabama. Hence, Cleveland was known then as "Alabama North." One  aside: as Phillips tells us, little is known about the above sketch. The same is true of the Brazilians posters in question, which were found in the attic of a West Virginia home (of all places). Brazilian scholar Amilcar Pereira will present a lecture on these posters prior to April 23's exhibit. Please stay tuned for more details.