office hours: TTh[2:30 - 4:00] or by appointment
- readings are in canvas
- go to canvas every week
- attendance and participation - 20%
- 2 quizzes - 30%
- mid-term written assignmemnmt - 20%
- group presentation - 10%
- final examination[likely short answer and multiple choice) - 20%
- LATE PAPERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED
- READ MLK EXCERPT FOR NEXT TUESDAY
- we will be given a list of terms for the quizzes
- paper format will be gone over before the paper(chicago style)
terms:
- langston hughes: a prolific african american poet who wrote primarily during the harlem renaissance(1920s)
- reconstruction era(1865-1877)
- civil war(1861-1865)
- historically black colleges and universities(HBCUs)
- dr. carter g. woodson: pioneer of "negro history week", founded the ASALH, wrote in the Journal of Negro History
- association for the study of afro-american life and history(ASALH)
- martin luther king jr. "the purpose of education"
- jim crow segregation
- middle passages
- the african american experience is influenced not only race, but also class, gender, sexuality, culture, time, and place
- resistance and struggle are central themes of the african american experience
- black agency and self-determination: black people were determined to have control over their destinies; autonomy
- nat turner's reovlt
- the underground railroad
- while some significant gains were made during reconstruction, it was an extremely short lived period
- followed by retaliation in southern societies
- various methods of disenfranchisement
- literacy tests, prison system, jim crow laws, gerrymandering, etc.
- the harlem renaissance in the 1920s shows an expansion of black art, culture, and critical thought
- laid the foundation for future movements and acts of resistance
- brown v. board of education overtuned the ideal of "separate but equal" established in plessy v. ferguson
- african american institutional and community-building
- a liberal arts education develops a student across disciplines
- a primary source is a source that derives from the time period they were produced
- "a pedagogy(method of teaching) of hope":
- communitas:
- second curriculum: a curriculum in addition to your field of study; "the way that black faculty and students infused race consciousness into the curriculum and extracurricular activities"
reconstruction: 1865-1877
- we still contend with the affects of reconstruction
- was reconstruction a success or a failure?
- nikole hannah-jones' 1619 project highlights the legacy and long-term effects of slavery within the United States
- what did freedom mean to african americans who had previously been in bondage?
- sometimes small: the changing of names, expression in fashion
- sometimes overt: direct acts of resistance(individual or collective), fighting against jim crow
- black people begin voting, two black civil war veterans are elected to senate
- education was essential to furthering liberation
- the formation of black institutions: the black church and black schools
- special field order no. 15 (general sherman) called for previously confiscated land to be redistributed amongst the formerly enslaved[40 acres & a mule]
- andrew johnson becomes president and ruins america
- freedman's bureau: created post civil war to assist freed men and women and poor whites recover
- having no land, black people were forced into a system of sharecropping
-sharecropping: working on a plantation owner's land and dividing the profits between the sharecropper and the owner
- by enforcing false debt and financial dishonestly, black people were kept trapped within this system
- civil rights act(1964): "prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, and sex in public facilities, education, and employment"
- voting rights act(1965): prohibits racial discrimination in voting systems
- fair housing act(1968): prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing
- black codes: discriminatory laws created to prevent black people from exercising their rights
used to cement the position of black people as majority landless, unskilled, domestic laborers
- radical republicans: an abolitionist group formed within the republican party
- 13th amendment: abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except for the punishment of a crime
- 14th amendment: equal protection, due process, birthright citizenship, naturalization
- 15th amendment: the right to vote cannot be prevented on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude
- compromise of 1877: tilden won popular vote, hayes won electoral college; tilden conceded presidency on the condition that federal soldiers would leave the south
- plessy v. ferguson(1896): affirmed the idea of "separate but equal" in public spaces
ON THE 23RD AND 25TH WE WILL BE IN THE LIBRARY @ 1:00
- i will be leading class discussion on thursday about dubois's talented 10th
- dubois overview:
- born in 1868 in great barrington, ma
- one of the most prominent 20th century african-american thinkers
- early proponent of interdisciplinary africana studies
- edited "the crisis"; the naacp magazine
- the scholar denied by alden morris shows his importance to the development of sociology
- taught at atlanta university
- wrote about the complexity of the african experience
- wrote "the philidelphia negro"
- arguably his most important book "the souls of black folk"
- another important work, "black reconstruction" refuting the dunning school
booker t washington vs. w.e.b. dubois
- operated under very different leadership styles
- portrayed themselves in opposing manners
- theory vs action
niagara movement
- served as a precursor to the naacp
- edits for the crisis
- moves back to atlanta and teaches at atlanta university
- seeing the knuckles of a lynched man provided greater motivation for him to not be only an intellectual but also an activist(scholar-activism)
- pan-africanism: a social, political, and cultural philosophy that is a global movement that recognizes the commonality of african people around the world
- was a key figure in the pan-african conferences
- dubois becomes a critic of both capitalist and racist systems and their intersections
- moves to ghana
- he dies
class discussion topics
- booker t washington v. w.e.b dubois
- dubois's soul of black folks
- dubois's idea of the talented tenth
booker t washington
- argues for a reliance of black people on white society in order to regain footing and cooperation in society
- african-americans should accept the position of second-class citizens
- this would guarentee access to positions of labor(albeit second-class or domicile labor)
- lauded white americans who were willing to use black americans for cheap labor
- promoted ideas that slavery was beneficial to black people; for introducing english, christianity, and civility
- ideas aimed to lessen racial violence at the cost of black dignity and aims for future social progress
quote from washington's atlanta compromise speech(1895)
"To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate
the importance of preservating friendly relations with the southern white man who is their next door neighbor,
I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are." Cast it down, making friends in every manly way of the people
of all races, by whom you are surrounded.
To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign
birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted, I would repeat what I have
said to my own race: "Cast down your bucket where you are." Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose
habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of
your fireside. Cast down your bucket among these people who have without strikes and labor wars tilled your fields,
cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, just
to make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South."
w.e.b. dubois
- directly confronted washingotn's ideas in his the souls of black folk
- was disgusted by washington's of black people relegating themselves to second-class positions
- was focused on achieving progress through social and politically equal conditions
- believed that a subsect of african-americans, the "talented tenth", bore a responsibility to uplift their brothers
- the great migration: demographic shift of black people from southern rural cities to southern urban cities and eventually north and west urban cities
- xenophobia: fear of foreigners, applied to specific demographics
- the long civil rights movement(1954-1968)[began w brown v. board]
- ella baker: helped establish sncc(student nonviolent coordinating committee), helped organize but criticized sclc(southern christian leadership conference)
- mllk's triple evils: racism, execissive materialism, and militarism
- im sick and cannot be bothered to take notes