Intro African American Studies

This course surveys the struggles and accomplishments of Americans of African descent in the United States. Using a multidisciplinary approach, we will analyze the historical path of African Americans from enslavement through to the modern era. We will examine how varied political, economic, social, and cultural processes have shaped and reshaped Black communities across the country, revealing the complicated ways we come to know and live race in the United States. Areas of exploration will include, but are not limited to, the following: the construction of racial identity, the enslaved family, the formation of post-emancipation Black communities, Reconstruction,
internal migrations, the Civil Rights Movement, varied expressions and applications of Black Power, mass incarceration,  #BlackLivesMatter, and the complexity of Black identity in the modern era.

Through a largely, but not exclusively, chronological approach we will study how African Americans have worked to determine the trajectory of their own lives. In particular, we will explore how Black people have fought discrimination by enacting strategic acts of non-violent collective political change. We’ll also study more radical acts of resistance, from armed rebellions led by the enslaved, to the creation of independent black communities, to the urban uprisings of the 20th & 21st centuries. Despite differences in strategies, we will see that these efforts have aimed to achieve the same goals: the elimination of racism, the achievement of cultural, political, and economic freedom, and the realization of democratic rights and equity for all people in a racially pluralistic world.