13th Congress of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research

Presentation Abstracts

MULLEN, Patrick

Personal and Political Concerns in African American Children's Rhymes: 1971 and 2001

I conducted field research on African American children’s rhymes among a group of 10 to 12-year olds in Columbus, Ohio in 1971. Their rhymes were often concerned with social and political themes of the 1960s: integration, Black Power, and Black Pride. They communicated a sense of frustration over problems of racism’ especially over failed attempts to achieve equality. In 2000 I began field research among the same age-group of African American children and plan to continue that research into 2001. The concerns of the children are markedly different today: there are very few references to political and racial problems and more references to personal problems such as a growing awareness of the opposite sex and sexual/romantic relations. Perhaps the concerns of 1971 and 2001 are not as far apart as they first appear; personal sexual themes could be related to public concerns about teen pregnancies and resulting social problems in the black community. The personal stories that these rhymes suggest could be directly related to a master political narrative. I shall examine the underlying structures of the rhymes as they relate to social structures of the two different time periods.