Dr. Joanne Martin, founder of the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, setting the record straight and defining the Helping Tradition in the Black Family and Community.
CLLCTIVLY was joined by Dr. Joanne M. Martin, founder of the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum and noted historian, educator, and researcher.
Dr. Martin lead us in a lecture on the Helping Tradition in the Black Family and Community. Often misunderstood and stereotyped, the Black family in America has been viewed by some as pathological, while others have acclaimed its resilience and strength. Martin’s research examines the Black extended family, particularly the extended family’s major elements of mutual aid and social-class cooperation. This pattern of black self-help spread from the black extended family to institutions in the wider black community through fictive kinship and racial and religious consciousness.
Dr. Martin, along with her late husband, Dr. Elmer P. Martin authored four books: Social Work and the Black Experience; The Helping Tradition in the Black Family and Community; and Spirituality and the Black Helping Tradition in Social Work (published by the National Association of Social Work press) and the Black Extended Family.(University of Chicago Press).
