ASRC 6404 - The Black 70s: From Black Politics to Black Popular Culture

(crosslisted) AMST 6404

Spring. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Co-meets with AMST 4404/ASRC 4404.

N. Rooks.

Using film, primary documents, literature, art, and secondary sources, this course explores the ten-year period between the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 and 1978, when The Supreme Court case, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke upheld the constitutionality of affirmative action, but imposed limitations on it to ensure that providing greater opportunities for minorities did not come at the expense of the rights of the majority. This decade marks one of the most turbulent periods in American history and radical changes impacting the political, religious, artistic, legal and educational cultures of Black people occurred during the period. For the most part we take these changes for granted without giving much thought to their origins. Through a variety of readings, discussions, and research papers, and through the screening of documentaries, the course aims to explore and arrive at a deeper understanding of the major events of the period and to understand how structural issues impacted the lives of African Americans, as well as how they responded to these upheavals. We will then seek to understand how that period relates to today.