Looking back to look forward in the spirit: Quaring the Black Mecca through oral histories

This dissertation, Looking Back to Look Forward in the Spirit: Quaring the Black Mecca through Oral Histories, examines the collegiate experiences of five Black queer men—Charles, Darryl, Tony, Mario, and Devereaux—who attended college in Atlanta during the 1990s. Using oral history and life narrative methods grounded in Quare Theory, this study explores how these men navigated higher education while negotiating the sociopolitical complexities of Atlanta as both a historically Black metropolis and an aspirational “Black Mecca.” Through their narratives, this project illuminates how narrators crafted affirming spaces amid institutional silence and structural violence, reimagined belonging, and enacted Black queer worldmaking practices that challenged heteronormative and classed expectations, all while thriving through their collegiate experiences. By positioning memory and story as critical data, this dissertation intervenes in education policy, Black queer studies, and cultural memory scholarship. It interrogates institutional complicity in the erasure of Black queer presence, while highlighting how these men’s political consciousness, resistance, and community-building practices created pathways of possibility for future generations. The study also critiques dominant framings of Atlanta as universally liberatory, instead offering a quared lens that reveals the exclusions, performances, and liberatory enactments that marked Black queer life in the city. Ultimately, this research suggests formalizing contemporary genres of study within higher education, expanding how we understand agency, space, and resistance in institutional and urban contexts.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Studamire, Dante R.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Moton, Theopolies
• Dixson, Adrienne D
• Span, Christopher
• Zamani-Gallaher, Eboni

• Black queer men
• higher education
• oral history
• life narrative
• Quare Theory
• disidentification
• intersectionality
• Atlanta
• Black Mecca
• spatial politics
• worldmaking
• cultural memory

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Dante Studamire

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129758

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F129758