ASRC 2620 - African American History 1865-Present

(crosslisted) HIST 2621

Spring. 3 credits.

K. Gaines.

This course introduces students to African American history from Emancipation to the present-day conditions and continuing struggles for justice of African Americans. Lectures and discussions emphasize the changing political, economic, religious, and social conditions of African Americans. Special attention is paid to African Americans’ struggles for citizenship during Reconstruction, the era of Jim Crow Segregation, and during the post-World War II Black Freedom Movement. Throughout, we will consider the class and gender dimensions of African American life, and the contested nature of African American politics, notions of community, culture, and of blackness, itself. We will also examine the ways in which African American literature, artistic expression, and popular culture was an outgrowth of African American struggles for equality. The readings will include both primary and secondary sources.