Black ethnographic activists: Exploring Robert Park, scientific racism, The Chicago School, and FBI files through the Black sociological experience of Charles S. Johnson and E. Franklin Frazier

Journal article

Blackman, S. 2023. Black ethnographic activists: Exploring Robert Park, scientific racism, The Chicago School, and FBI files through the Black sociological experience of Charles S. Johnson and E. Franklin Frazier. Symbolic Interaction. 46 (3), pp. 287-310. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.628

Publication dates
Authors	Blackman, S.
Abstract	Charles S. Johnson and E. Franklin Frazier were successful Black sociologists from the 1920s to 1960s, working in an age of scientific racism and eugenics, who battled racial oppression, racist discrimination, and surveillance under the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Both struggled within and against the assimilationist paradigm, yet their ethnographic and critical insights speak out today with continuing relevance in the fight against practical and institutional racial injustice. This study selectively examines Johnson and Frazier's academic careers as forgotten ethnographer activists who have been largely excluded from the dominant narrative of the Chicago School of Sociology. This article argues Robert Park offered opportunities to these Black scholars although the white university system exclusively directed their work towards race studies. Furthermore, the white discipline of sociology failed to recognize Johnson and Frazier's critical ethnographic studies as part of interactionism.
Keywords	Black sociology; Charles S. Johnson; E. Franklin Frazier; Interactionism; Ethnography; Scientific racism; Robert Park; Chicago School; FBI
Year	2023
Journal	Symbolic Interaction
Journal citation	46 (3), pp. 287-310
Publisher	Wiley
ISSN	0195-6086
	1533-8665
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)	https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.628
Official URL	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/symb.628
Online	31 Jan 2023
Publication process dates
Accepted	27 Dec 2022
Deposited	31 Aug 2023
Publisher's version	Symbolic Interaction - 2023 - Blackman.pdf License CC BY 4.0
Output status	Published

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