Alaska Black Caucus: First Annual Awards Banquet Event Program 1977
On January 29, 1977 at the Ramada Inn in Anchorage, Alaska, programs were given out to those in attendance of the First Annual Awards Banquet Event, open to the public and sponsored by the Alaska Black Caucus. The program’s pages include the officers for 1977 of the executive committee, board of directors, the order of events, the schedule of meetings, a defined purpose for the meetings, and an acknowledgement page. The program is fully colored with the overall theme of gold and does not contain any illustrations. This particular program portrays the evident hope African Americans were hanging onto during the 1970s in Alaska specifically, while also pointing to the evident suffering within the local Black communities and its extent nationwide, calling upon a need to protect Black freedoms that have been won.
The presence of African Americans in Alaska began in the mid-nineteenth century during the era of Pacific whaling. The mass migration of African Americans to Alaska was a journey worthwhile for many, presented with a variety of job opportunities. However, throughout the history of African Americans in Alaska, there has also been a struggle for racial equality with many macro-level policies that shaped Anchorage’s, the largest city in Alaska, postwar racial landscape. The two most prominent macro-level policies that played a role in the postwar racial landscape was housing discimination and covenant language that was tailored to limit the land to white, pushing the Black community into the Eastchester Flats. The Flats were known for prostituion, gambling, shacks, and clubs. However, the Flats also had a sense of community and efficiency, represented through a real estate office, laundry, beauty parlor, make-shift hotels, cafes, barbershops, and Alaska’s only Black-owned and operated grocery store. By the end of the 1960s, Anchorage had uprooted the Flats, the largest Black community, and it ceased to exist. As a result, Black power was diluted, due to no longer being concentrated in one area, and the ability for Blacks to establish autonomy in a White-majority city dissipated. In this regard, Anchorage’s postwar history connects to nationwide trends.
During the 1960s, there was a push for civil rights for African Americans that began in the South, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. After Dr. King was assassinated in 1968, the civil rights movement struggled to recover. The economic decline and extreme poverty experienced by the Black community of the inner city was often portrayed in the television, sports, music, film, literature, and art industries, including the birth of hip-hop, a cultural phenomenon. By the 1970s, other groups began their own pushes and the push surrounding African Americans dissipated.
The language used in the First Annual Awards Banquet program has direct correlations to the linguistic practices utilized by the Black preaching tradition, which relies on the use of Standard English. In the event program, there is reference to “our children,” which illustrates the collective Black experience, followed by an invitation into the Black experience by stating, “The Caucus invites you, personally.” The engagement and encouragement of participation into the Black experience is a call-and-response ritual and strategy commonly used by Black preachers. Overall, the conventional use of Standard English evokes a powerful Black English narrative structure that seeks to break down barriers hindering economic, political, educational, cultural, and racial progress and achievement.
MACKENZIE LINDEMAN is a senior pursuing a Baccalaureate in English. Selected by Professor Stone.