Ronald E. McNair Program


Kemeshia Randle
Name: Kemeshia Randle
School: Tougaloo College
Major: English
Mentor: Dr. Ethel Young-Minor
Expected Graduation Date: May 2007 

Organizations & Honors: 
• Ronald E. McNair Scholar
• O.A.S.I.S (Orientation Assistants Serving Incoming Students)  
• Presidential Scholar 
• Vice-President’s List 
• Student Support Services 
• Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. 
• Yearbook Staff 
• Student Support Services Scholarship Recipient  
• Who’s Who Among College Students 
• Residential Assistant 
E-MAIL: missmeshiarandle@aol.com 

COMMENTS:
The Ronald E. McNair Program has, indeed, been a blessing and a wonderful experience for me. The fact that I had the opportunity of doing independent research on the topic of my choice was very helpful in giving me a dose of what graduate school would be like. I made life-long friends. All in all, the Ronald E. McNair Program has been nothing but a positive experience for me. Thanks, Dr. Cole, Demetria Hereford, Tomesha Thompson, and Dr. Ethel Young-Minor.
 


 

ABSTRACT

All Women Are Conjurers”: Voodoo Manipulation in the Heroines of Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men and Jewell Parker Rhodes’s Voodoo Dreams


Although Black women should have benefited from the freedoms included in the United States Constitution, many struggle against race and gender oppression. Being black and female in the United States often places one in a position of what Francis Beale refers to as “double jeopardy,” where one struggles with race and gender. One of the methods of reducing double jeopardy’s negative impact has been voodoo manipulation. This paper explores voodoo manipulation by Black females by tracing its historical manipulation in Hurston’s Mules and Men and its imaginative manipulation in Jewell Parker Rhodes’ Voodoo Dreams