Course Title
SLAVERY AND CIVIL RIGHTS IN US HISTORY
Course Description
Prerequisite: Open to graduate students and qualified undergraduates (those who have completed a minimum of 96 undergraduate credits with an overall GPA of at least 3.2). Qualified undergraduates must contact the Office of Graduate Studies for the required permission form. Crosslisted with MAHG 5059. The course will address systematic state violence against Blacks in the US, from slavery to the present, and situate this history in broader discussions on modern genocide and mass violence in the US and around the world. It will also explore Black responses to mass violence, including the Civil Rights Movement, and the memory culture of this history in the US today - especially as race thinking, discrimination, segregation, mass incarceration, the forced removal of Black children from their families, and daily harassment, violence, and killings of Blacks are still very much structural elements of US politics and society. Until the spring break, students will work with primary documents, media reports and images, testimonies, and current scholarship, and they will be required to participate in the study tour to slavery and civil rights sites during the spring break. Upon return from the study tour, students will devote the rest of the semester to writing their papers and preparing to present them at the end of the semester.
Units
3
