Lecture on Nov. 9 to explore what it means to be Black in America

Inaugural Saint Michael’s Edmundite Graduate Fellow Jolivette Anderson-Douoning to present history-based insights from hand-written documentation of one woman's daily life

November 2, 2021
Faculty/staff report

Event Name: “When and Where ‘We the People’ Enter(ed)”: My People are the ‘B’ in BIPOC [Our Black Experience and the American Dream from 1830s Louisiana to the Present Moment!”

Presenter: Jolivette Anderson-Douoning

Event Time & Location:  Tuesday, November 9, 2021 – 4:45 p.m. to 6:15 p.m., Saint Michael’s College McCarthy Arts Center – Recital Hall

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Jolivette Anderson-Douoning

A public lecture on November 9 by Jolivette Anderson-Douoning — the Inaugural Saint Michael’s College African American Scholar in Residence — will map the American Dream as it has been lived by Black Americans going back six generations in two northern Louisiana parishes.

“Those interested in what it means to be ‘Black in America’ and to be ‘Black American’ will gain insight and understanding as we all move forward toward trying to better ourselves, each other, and the United States of America,” said Anderson-Douoning. The lecture starts at 4:45 p.m. in the McCarthy Arts Center Recital Hall on the Saint Michael’s campus.

In her presentation of approximately 90 minutes, Anderson-Douoning will outline findings from her dissertation, titled ‘LOUISIANA LEARNING: Race-Space Geographic Education and the Creation of a Black Cultural ‘Place’ in Shreveport’s Hollywood Neighborhood.”

Her topic examines “the American Dream as it has been lived by Black Americans going back six generations in Caddo and DeSoto Parishes in North Louisiana,” said Anderson-Douoning, whose  research connects 190 years of “paternal” oral and land ownership history (from 1830s) to 70 years “maternal,” “field to factory” history (from late 1940s).

This history will teach the audience lessons “about Race, Anti-Racism, Black Culture, Self-Liberation, Democracy, and survival by using one of many often unheard narratives from the Black American experience in the United States,” she said. “Family archives in conversation with Louisiana State University-Shreveport and Southern University Shreveport Archives are the source materials used to center the voice of a Black woman named Mrs. Goldleana.”

“Mrs. Goldleana left hand-written documentation of the history of the United States because she wrote down the day-to-day happenings of her rural to urban migration. Her life in her community is a historiography that exemplifies how ‘inclusion’ into the nation’s history should be told and taught,” said Anderson-Douoning, who has been teaching in the Saint Michael’s History Department this semester while working on her dissertation and immersing herself in community life.

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