Published Works

"Sacred and Secular: African American Women's Expressions through Folk Music, 1933-1950" 

African American women experienced uniquely compounded structures of

systemic oppression due to the legacy of enslavement and the establishment of Jim Crow

laws in the early twentieth century. This thesis explores how Black women’s awareness of

their position in the social hierarchy was echoed through their music as acts of resistance

from 1933–1950. Even though Black women had limited access to shift their position in

the social class system, they were able to articulate their emotions through sorrow-centered

genres of music to highlight the trauma of their experiences. Blues and gospel music that

African Americans sang during this period highlighted their emotions through expressions

of lamentation, escapism, and intricate communal relationships. This thesis will examine

Alan Lomax’s recordings of working-class Black women singing spiritual and gospel folk

music in their homes, in prison, and at church. Additionally, this thesis will analyze the

songs recorded by Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Mahalia

Jackson’s discography. An analysis of Duke University’s oral history project of African American

 women living during Jim Crow will be aligned with the musical expressions as

a dialectical comparison of how these songs resonated with Black women living during the

same time period. African American women understood that there was a freedom in their

ability to express pain and to move through it through their music. In doing this they could

face trauma head on to address who they were and where they stood in the social hierarchy

in relation to men, racism, and to each other.