Course Description
The twentieth-century struggle for civil rights, black identity, and self-determination. The response to industrialism and urbanization. The role of black institutions and political organizations. The philosophy and tactics of accommodation, integration, and separatism.
Athena Title
MOD AFR AMER EXPER
Semester Course Offered
Offered every even-numbered year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course examines the African-American experience from a multidisciplinary perspective from 1865 to the present, relying on lectures, selected readings, and documentaries. We will examine the ways in which African Americans made the transition from slavery to freedom, and how the American social, economic, and political landscape was dramatically altered as the antebellum plantation system came to an end. We will study the evolution of black political thought as blacks began to abandon the politics of accommodation, as advanced by Booker T. Washington, in favor of a more militant approach, espoused by W.E.B. DuBois and the new “Negro elite.” After exploring the historical significance of the outpouring of black literary achievement that came to be known as the “Harlem Renaissance,” we will focus on the black experience in the post-World War II era, including a discussion of presidential politics and an extensive analysis of the black civil rights movement, in which thousands of black and white Americans fought to secure basic civil liberties and equal justice for all American citizens. The course will conclude with an examination of contemporary African-American culture. The principal objective of the course is to teach students to think critically for themselves about the relationships between the past and the present, to learn to ask questions of the past that enable them to understand the present and mold the future,and to become attuned to both the limitations and possibilities of change. The course seeks to acquaint students with the ways in which past societies and peoples have defined the relationships between community and individual needs and goals, and between ethical norms and decision-making. In general students will be expected to: 1. read a wide range of primary and secondary sources critically. 2. polish skills in critical thinking, including the ability to recognize the difference between opinion and evidence, and the ability to evaluate--and support or refute--arguments effectively. 3. write stylistically appropriate and mature papers and essays using processes that include discovering ideas and evidence, organizing that material, and revising, editing, and polishing the finished papers.
Topical Outline
Introduction The Civil War and Freedom The Promise of Reconstruction The Failure of Reconstruction Jack Johnson Race Riots World War I The Great Migration The Blues Lynching Reading Marcus Garvey Harlem Renaissance Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Progressivism The Black Church The Great Depression and the New Deal World War II Jackie Robinson Charles Hamilton Houston and the NAACP Brown v. Topeka Board of Education Emmett Till Montgomery and Little Rock Reading Sit-ins and Freedom Rides 1963 Freedom Summer and the MFDP Watts Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam The Rise of Black Power and the Black Panther Party 1970s and Black Culture Hip Hop
Syllabus