This is an introductory survey course on Afro-American history since the Civil War. We will review the causes of secession and the War Between the States, and proceed to discuss Reconstruction (1865-1877) and post-Reconstruction. We will also examine lynching, sharecropping, the segregation era, the role of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, and the great migrations of Afro-Americans to the North, and the era of World War I. The course will also examine Marcus Garvey, the Harlem Renaissance, the impact of the Great Depression and New Deal and World War II, the civil rights era, and some events since the 1960s. The course emphasizes the efforts of Afro-Americans to resist white supremacy and racial subordination in a racialized, stratified society.
The major readings include:
Joe William Trotter, The African American Experience, Volume II
Orlando Patterson, Rituals of Blood
Small Coursepack of photocopied readings
William M. Tuttle, Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919
Michael D'Orso, Rosewood: Like Judgment Day
William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears
David Zucchino, Myth of the Welfare Queen
Also recommended:
Alex Kotlowitz, There Are No Children Here
There will be three book reports (interpretive papers) on Race Riot, Rosewood and Myth of the Welfare Queen (or There Are No Children Here).
The exams will count as 60% of the course grade, class attendance and participation will count as 10%, and each of the papers will count as 10% (30% for all of the papers).