African American History 1877-present (21:512:234)
Spring 2013 (Conklin 424)
Instructor: L. Hunter
Office & Hours: MTW 11:30-12:12:50 pm or by appointment (Conklin 320)
Email:Lahunter@andromeda.rutgers.edu
Course description:
“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line…”
More than one hundred years later, the words of W.E.B. Du Bois remain relevant, as the color-line of the
twentieth century is now a multi-colored kaleidoscope – and in a momentous turn of events, all American
people find themselves trapped behind a “veil” of dual identity. Arab Americans, African Americans,
Irish Americans, Chinese Americans, Italian Americans, Indian Americans, Cuban Americans – the list is
endless. What does it mean to assume an American identity in modern times? How do racial categories
complicate an individual’s “American-ness”? More importantly, how have racial definitions and redefinitions impacted the struggles of African Americans in the United States to create a social, political,
and economic equality? In the coming weeks we will navigate the journey of African American people
through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We will think about the ways that African American
people have shaped and reshaped their racial identities as they have struggled to promote a more just
society. As we think this through this history, we will analyze the importance of race to African American
people in their contemporary social, political, economic and religious experiences. This is not a course
that demands you to memorize an extensive list of dates and people, but it will challenge you to think
critically about the significance of major historical trends & events impacting African American identity
construction.
Required Texts:
Robin D. G. Kelley & Earl Lewis To Make Our World Anew: Volume II: A History of African Americans
Since 1880 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
Carter G. Woodson The Mis-Education of the Negro (free e-copies of this text are available through a
Google search. A free copy is also available here: http://historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/misedne.html)
Touré Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What it means to be Black now. (New York: Free Press, 2011)
Many of the required readings will be posted on blackboard. You are responsible for reading them
before their prospective dates of discussion.
Grading:
Grading in this course is based on a raw points system.
Papers/Take Home Assignments (25 points): You will have three paper assignments this semester. Two of
the assignments will be 2-3 page reading/film responses each worth ten points. The last paper will be a
slightly longer formal assignment worth fifteen points. I will provide a detailed assignment sheet for each
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African American History 1877-present (21:512:234)
Spring 2013 (Conklin 424)
paper, and we will discuss all assignments well in advance of their respective due dates. YOU MUST
SUBMIT ALL PAPERS IN EITHER Chicago OR APA FORMAT. I also ask that you all submit one
electronic, and one hard copy of every assignment. Failure to complete your papers on time will result
in an overall lower grade.
Examinations (35 points): You will complete two major examinations in this course. Each examination
will require you to demonstrate your understanding of the concepts and ideas we discuss together each
week, and your ability to analytically apply those concepts and ideas to the present. Please see the reading
schedule below for the dates of both.
Quizzes (20): You will take four quizzes over the course of the semester; each quiz will require you to
demonstrate your understanding of the major people, places, trends and events we discuss throughout the
course. Some of your quizzes will be announced, but not all; please keep this in mind. Note: If you miss
a quiz for any reason, you must make it up within two class sessions. After this time, you will lose
the opportunity – except in cases of proven medical emergency. You cannot re-take a missed pop
quiz.
Participation (20 points): Consistent participation in this class is essential to excelling in it, and
meaningful, honest discussions are the only ways to keep it interesting. To ensure this, we must all bring
ourselves to every conversation. We must question, critique and carefully consider each other’s points
throughout the semester if we are to walk away with a strong command of the issues that shape the
African American experience of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I structured this course so that
each of you feels comfortable enough to engage in, and contribute to, classroom conversation, through the
following three activities:
• Bloggernaut (10 points) –Beginning in week three of this semester, you will sign up for the
bloggernaut activity. This activity requires you to act as a kind of cultural critic/reporter on the
most interesting things happening in contemporary African American history. Starting in the
fourth week of the course you and your chosen group members will select a given topic from a
list I will provide during week one. You will then collaborate to create one 250-300 word blog
per week until the end of the semester – which should total twelve. In the last two weeks, each
group will take turns presenting blog sites. A detailed guideline for this exercise is available on
blackboard.
• Debate or Debacle Exercise (10 points): You are each required to participate in a mandatory
debate session. In groups of four to six, you will debate another pair, or group of three, on a
controversial topic related to a given topic, or primary document/source. You will have a 10-12
minute period to present your arguments, after which I will open the debate to the rest of the
class, who will contribute through critique. A detailed guideline is available on blackboard.
Extra Credit: Over the course of the semester, I will create discussion forums and blogs for open
discussion on blackboard. Provide an insightful and careful response to my questions and you can add
points to your final grade. I do not put limits on the number of forums you respond to, but only one
submission per forum will earn your extra half point.
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Spring 2013 (Conklin 424)
Attendance & Punctuality: I count all unexcused absences as non-medical and non-emergencies. If you
need to miss class for any of these reasons please alert me as soon as you can. Otherwise, three incidences
of lateness equal one unexcused absence; four unexcused absences put you in danger of failure; six of
these will result in an ‘F’ Grade.
Academic Integrity:
Rutgers University has a detailed policy on plagiarism. If you are unfamiliar with this policy, please visit
this website: http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/integrity.shtml
Reading Schedule: (Note: schedule subject to change)
WEEK 1 (Jan. 18)
(Jan. 22) Introduction to the course
What did Emancipation mean for African Americans? How would they carry these meanings into the
twentieth century and twenty-first centuries?
Fleeting, Shining Moments & Brutal Realities
WEEK 2 (Jan. 28-30)
(Jan. 28) Read: Kelley & Lewis To Make Our World Anew pp. 3-32
Blackboard Readings: “The Ku Klux Klan Is a Peace Keeping Organization” & Benjamin M. Boyer
“Blacks Should Not Have the Right to Vote”
(Jan.30) Read: The Mis-Education of the Negro Ch. 1
Blackboard Readings: Booker T. Washington “The Atlanta Compromise Speech” & W.E.B. Du Bois
“The Talented Tenth”
Turning the Century with Jumping Jim Crow
WEEK 3 (Feb. 4- 6)
(Feb. 4) Read: Kelley & Lewis To Make Our World Anew pp. 32-66 & Carter G. Woodson The MisEducation of the Negro Ch. 2-3
Blackboard Audio: Oscar Brown Jr. “The Work Song”
(Feb 6) Blackboard Reading: Ida B. Wells Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Places & Deborah G.
White “Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle West” in Signs Vol. 14 No.4, 912-920.
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African American History 1877-present (21:512:234)
Spring 2013 (Conklin 424)
WEEK 4 (Feb. 11-13) DEBATE SESSION I (Extra Credit Opportunity: MTW Conference 2/16)
First reading response submission due before the end of the week.
(Feb. 11) Read: Kelley & Lewis To Make Our World Anew pp.67-86
Blackboard Readings: Marita Bonner’s “On Being Young – A Woman – and Colored” & “The Prison
Bound”
(Feb. 13) Blackboard Readings: Excerpts from Siobhan Somerville’s Queering the Color Line &Marlon
B. Ross’s Manning the Race & Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die,”
No Deals, New Deals & Depressions
WEEK 5 (Feb. 18-20)
(Feb. 18) Read: Kelley & Lewis To Make Our World Anew pp. 87-110
Blackboard Readings: “1100 Negroes Dessert Savannah Georgia” in the McDowell Times & “The
Massacre of East St. Louis” in Crisis
(Feb. 20) Read: Kelley & Lewis To Make Our World Anew pp. 110-130 & The Mis-Education of the
Negro Ch. 9 & 11
Blackboard Readings: Marcus Garvey “What We Believe”/”The Principles of the Universal Negro
Association” & “The Teachings of Father Divine”
Counter Narratives in “real time” & the Failures of the Double ‘V’
WEEK 6 (Feb. 25-27) DEBATE SESSION II
(Feb. 25) Read: Kelley & Lewis To Make Our World Anew pp.131-157
Blackboard Reading & Audio: Billy Holiday “Strange Fruit” & Maureen Anderson “The White
Reception of Jazz” in the African American Review Vol. 38 (2004) King, Desmond, “The World’s
Against Me As a Black Man:’ Charles Mingus and Segregated America” in Journal of Historical
Sociology Vol. 12 No. 1 (March 2000)
(Feb. 27) Read: Kelley & Lewis To Make Our World Anew pp. 157-176
Blackboard Reading: A. Philip Randolph’s March on Washington Pamphlet & Jinx Coleman Broussard;
John Maxwell Hamilton, “Covering a Two-Front War: Three African American Correspondents During
World War II” in American Journalism. Vol. 22 (Summer2005)
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African American History 1877-present (21:512:234)
Spring 2013 (Conklin 424)
Defining Race in Open Forum
Second reading response due before the end of this week.
(Feb. 25) Read: Kelley & Lewis To Make Our World Anew pp.176-195
Blackboard Reading: Brown V. Board of Education decision
(Feb. 27) Blackboard Reading: Robin D.G. Kelley “Birmingham’s Untouchables: The Black Poor in the
Age of Civil Rights” from Race Rebels: Culture Politics and the Black Working Class (New York: The
Free Press, 1994)
WEEK 7 (Mar.4-6)
First paper assignment handed out Mar. 4
(Mar. 4) MIDTERM REVIEW SESSION
(Mar. 6) MIDTERM EXAM
WEEK 8 (Mar. 11-13) DEBATE SESSION III
(Mar. 11) Read: Kelley & Lewis To Make Our World Anew pp. 195-227
Blackboard Readings: Anne Moody “The Jackson Sit-in” & Fannie Lou Hamer “Testimony before the
Democratic National Convention”
(Mar. 13) Read: Kelley & Lewis To Make Our World Anew pp. 227-264
Blackboard Readings: El Hajj Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X) “America Can Have a Bloodless Revolution”
(1964) & Martin Luther King Jr. “Beyond Vietnam” (1967)
WEEK 9 (Mar.18-20)
SPRING BREAK! ENJOY!!!!!!!!!
Power to the People
WEEK 10 (Mar. 25-27)
(Mar. 19) Read: Kelley & Lewis To Make Our World Anew pp. 265-280
Blackboard Readings: The McCone Commission Report on Watts & SNCC “The Basis of Black Power”
& Eldridge Cleaver “Requiem for Nonviolence”
(Mar. 21) Read: Kelley & Lewis To Make Our World Anew pp. 281-318
Blackboard Readings: Larry Neal “Black Art and Black Liberation” & excerpts from Black Fire
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African American History 1877-present (21:512:234)
Spring 2013 (Conklin 424)
WEEK 11(Apr.1-3)
Formal paper assignment due on Apr.1 at the beginning of class.
(Mar. 26) Read: Kelley & Lewis To Make Our World Anew pp. 318-341
Blackboard Readings: Excerpts from Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice
(Mar. 28) Blackboard Reading: Abbey Lincoln “To Whom Will She Cry Rape?” & Frances Beal
“Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female”
Apologies for what and what happens now?
WEEK 12 (Apr. 8-10) DEBATE SESSION IV
(Apr. 8) Blackboard Reading: Excerpt from Debating Race Ch. 21 & 25 & Bill Cosby’s “Pound Cake
Speech”
(Apr. 10) Blackboard Readings: Saul Williams “An Open Letter to Oprah” & Toby Jenkins “A Beautiful
Mind: Black Male Intellectual Identity and Hip Hop” in Journal of Black Studies (April 2011) Vol. 42
Signifying & the Language of “Race”
WEEK 13(Apr.15-17)
(Apr. 15) Read: Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? Ch.1
Blackboard Reading: Blackboard Readings: Marcyliena Morgan “Hip Hop Women Shredding the Veil:
Race, Class and Popular Feminist Identity” in South Atlantic Quarterly Vol. 104 No.3 (Summer 2005)
(Apr. 17) Read: Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? Ch.2 & 4
WEEK 14(Apr. 22-24) DEBATE SESSION V
(Apr. 22) Read: Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? Ch.7-8 FIRST BLOG ACTIVITY PRESENTATION
(Apr.24) Blackboard Reading: Tia C. M. Tyree, “Bringing Afrocentricity to the Funnies” An Analysis of
Afrocentricity within Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks” in Journal of Black Studies (January 2011)
Vol. 42 No. 1 SECOND BLOG ACTIVITY PRESENTATION
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African American History 1877-present (21:512:234)
Spring 2013 (Conklin 424)
WEEK 15(Apr. 29- May 1)
(Apr. 29) THIRD BLOG ACTIVITY PRESENTATION
(May 1) FOURTH BLOG ACTIVITY PRESENTATION
WEEK 16 (May 6 -8)
(May 6) FINAL EXAM REVIEW
(May 8) Reading Day – NO CLASSES
FINAL EXAM
May 13, 2012 8:30-11:30 am (Con.346)
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