This course explores the history of African Americans from the abolition of chattel slavery to the present. In addition to exploring black people’s centuries-old striving for “community,” identity, and solidarity within local, national, and global contexts, we pay special attention to differences and diversity, particularly regional, gender and class distinctions within African American communities. We will also pay close attention to the contours of black life, thought and resistance in the late 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. We are especially interested in the ways in which African American communities resisted state-sanctioned policing and violence. We want students to gain new insights into ex-slaves and ex-masters, lynch victims and lynch mobs, women and men, working people and employers, rich and poor. More importantly, students should know how all of these relationships are interconnected to American culture, the economy, politics, power, and tradition. Our intention, therefore, is not to add more color to the painting, but to revise the painting altogether!

HTS 3025 is held during the Early Five-Week Session and meets Monday, Wednesdays, and Friday from 2:00 - 4:30 PM.