This is an interdisciplinary introduction to African American Studies, which places at the center of inquiry the experience of people of African extraction in the United States and the African diaspora. The course examines issues of history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, political science and urban studies. This semester the focus of the course will be the African American freedom struggle, with emphasis on the lives of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Kwame. This is a reading-intensive course. The lectures will be supplemented by several videos.

1. Orlando Patterson Rituals of Blood
2. George Breitman The Last Year of Malcolm X
3. Peter Louis Goldman The Death and Life of Malcolm X
4. James Cone Martin and Malcolm and America:

 

 

A Dream or A Nightmare?

5. Kwame Ture and Charles V. Hamilton Black Power: The Politics of Liberation
6. William Julius Wilson When Work Disappears
7. Bell Hooks Yearning: Race, Gender and Cultural Politics