STRAYER UNIVERSITY
White Marsh Campus
Baltimore, Maryland
OUR WORLD ANEW
A HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS
AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY – HIS300
Professor:
Office Hours:
Telephone:
Dr. Amos M.D. Sirleaf
Before and After Class, or by appointment
(Leave Message)Email: amdsirleaf@hotmail.com
Website@ www.geocities.com/amdsirleaf
Saturday 9:00AM-12:45AM
COURSE PHILOSOPHY: (Nothing can stop us from passing this course, if only we
do what is required of us, and seek assistance from our Professor when we do not
understand.) “No Student Must Be Left Behind.”
Course Syllabus from July 3 to September 11, 2004
This African-American Upper Division History Course is a survey of the African
Diaspora from 1502 to the present. It traces the dispersal of people of African ancestry
across their home continent and, subsequently, around the world to Europe, the Middle
East, Asia and the Americas. Finally, this course examines the issue of the return to
Africa. This demographic movement was sometimes voluntary but primarily involuntary
through the institution of slavery. Emphasis will also be placed on contemporary
diasporic developments in many areas of the world.
Course Objectives:

To introduce students to the historiography of the African Diaspora and the
historical methods used by historians to write the current history of people to
make our world anew.

To introduce and critically analyze ideas and issues about the universality of
African peoples, their history, states, and institutions since 1502.

To examine the challenges faced by people of African descent in the new world
since 1502 and to develop an understanding of their responses as enslaved semifree and eventually as independent people and nations.

To understand the role and contributions of African/African-American peoples
and their descendants within a global historical and geographical context.
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Required Text:
Robin D.G. Kelley and Earl Lewis To Make Our World Anew: A History of African
Americans. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 198 Madison Avenue,
New York, New York.
Teaching Strategies:
This course will be conducted in a seminar format. This means that there will be
lectures, project assignments, presentations, and videos based on the text. In addition
to the required text, Professor teaching the course may, from time to time, identify
supplementary source materials that students should read. Each student is
EXPECTED TO READ THE ASSIGNED MATERIAL BEFORE COMING TO
CLASS so that you have a better framework for understanding the lecture materials.
Student participation is strongly encouraged and expected.
Student Responsibilities:
1. Attend class regularly and keep a complete notebook (lecture notes, homework,
graded papers, handouts, quizzes, tests).
2. Stay current in reading and written assignments.
3. Constructively and responsibly challenge the opinions and interpretations
presented in lectures, reading and by others in the class.
4. Students are to notify me in advance of excused absence. This notification should
be in writing at least one week prior to the absence.
5. If a student misses a test, he/she must have a written verifiable excuse to make up
the examination. Cheating on a test will result in an F Grade for that piece of
work.
Evaluation:
Both announced and unannounced quizzes will be given. Grades received on quizzes
will count toward your final grade; therefore, there will be no make-up for missed
quizzes. Quizzes will be used as a study tool to help students keep abreast of the
concepts studied during a particular period.
A thematic focus will be used to frame and give perspective to the study of “A History Of
African-Americans” so that students may fully understand the dynamics of changes in
diasporic societies since 1502. The thematic approach also offers a conceptual and
chronological framework for organizing the African-American experience and for
incorporating it into a general understanding of the contributions of Black people in the
development of world societies.
Examinations will be a combination of short essays, multiple choices, fill the blanks and
true/false. The examinations will be after we have completed a particular thematic area.
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Grading System:
In accordance with University regulations grades will be assigned as follows:
A = 90-100; B = 80-89; C = 70-79; D = 60-69; F = 59 or below
Course
Kelley and Lewis
Chapters
PART I: The Foundations of Understanding African Americans History – Preface - ix
The History of African Americans begins on the African Continent, a huge and varied land
bounded by the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. It was home to people with different
languages, traditions, histories, and religions. They called themselves Via, Grebos, Kpelle,
Krus, Mandingos, Yoruba, Ethiopians, Zulus, and Ashanti, among other names. Some lived
in ancient kingdoms as old as the annals of recorded history, and others lived in small
family groupings. Some lived in societies headed by powerful men, and others by powerful
women. Kelley and Lewis present the Comparative approach which looks at the amazing
history of African Americans as nothing less than the dramatic saga of a people attempting
to remake the world. Brought to the Americas against their will as commodities to be
bought and sold, Africans and their descendants struggled to change their conditions and
thus, turn the New World of their Europeans masters upside down. For if this book
demonstrates anything, it is that African Americans saw themselves as both Americans and
part of a larger, international “Black Diaspora”. To Make our World Anew, invoking
Langston Hughes, tells the story of the nation, but places the struggles and achievements of
“Black People” in a larger international framework. Whether in cities or rural areas,
whether Muslim, Christian, or others, the peoples of this amazing Continent had long
played a central role in WORLD AFFAIRS.
Chapters
THE FIRST PASSAGE – 1502 – 1619………………………..
From Africa to the Americas………………………………….
The Worlds of Slavery and Work…………………………….
Slave Society and Culture……………………………………..
The Struggle for Freedom……………………………………..
Shaping America……………………………………………….
Page… ... 3
Page…… 4
Page…… 16
Page…… 25
Page…… 38
Page…… 49
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EXAMINATION ONE**********************************************************
PART 2: STRANGE NEW LAND – 1619 – 1776…………… Page……. 53
The Uncertain Century……………………………………….. Page …….58
The Terrible Transformation………………………………… Page……..63
The Nation of Newcomers……………………………………. . Page……..71
A World of Work………………………………………………. Page……..78
Building a Culture………………………………………………Page……. 84
Breaking the Bonds……………………………………………..Page……...90
“Liberty! Liberty”………………………………………………Page……. 95
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EXAMINATION TWO**********************************************************
PART 3: REVOLUNTIONARY CITIZENS – 1776 – 1804…Page…….103
Battle Cry of Freedom…………………………………………..Page…….113
Blacks and the British …………………………………………Page…….119
Slavery and Freedom in the New Nation………………………Page…….128
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Richard Allen and the Promise of Freedom…………………...Page…….141
Paul Cuffee and the Failure of Freedom……………………….Page…….151
Haiti and the Image of Freedom……………………………… .Page…….160
EXAMINATION THREE********************************************************
PART 4: LET MY PEOPLE GO - 1804 – 1860……………….Page……169
What Slavery Was…………………………………………………Page……175
Slave Communities………………………………………………. Page……181
Fit for Freedom…………………………………………………… Page……190
A Different Kind of Freedom……………………………………..Page…….199
Let My People Go………………………………………………….Page…….210
Freedom Desperation to Hope……………………………………Page…….218
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EXAMINATION FOUR*********************************************************
PART 5: BREAKING THE CHAINS – 1860 – 1880…………..Page……227
Freedom: “Take Your Freedom, My Brothers and Sisters”…..Page……236
Politics: “Slavery Is Not Abolished until the Black Man
Has the Ballot”…………………………………………………Page……243
Labor: “I Mean to Own My Own Manhood”…………………...Page……254
Family: “My Name Was Peggie One of the Children
Of Prince and Rose”……………………………………………Page…..263
Community: “It Was a Whole Race Trying to Go
To School”………………………………………………………Page….271
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EXAMINATION FIVE**********************************************************
PART 6: THOUGH JUSTICE SLEEPS – 1880 – 1900………..Page…..281
Labor: “Let Us Put Our Shoulders to the Wheel”……………..Page…..288
Justice: “They Have Promised Us Law…and Given
Us Violence”……………………………………………………Page…..301
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WHAT IS AFRICE TO ME?.........................................................Page After 302
Self-Help: “To Hew Out His Own Path”………………………..Page…..310
Leadership: Show Us the Way”…………………………………..Page…..322
Woman’s Era: “Strong in a Love of Justice……………………..Page…..335
EXAMINATION SIX***********************************************************
PART 7: A CHANCE TO MAKE GOOD - 1900 - 1929………Page…..345
Making a Living……………………………………………………Page…...346
The “White Problem”……………………………………………...Page…...356
Building Communities……………………………………………..Page…...365
Schooling for Leadership………………………………………….Page……374
The “Second Emancipation”………………………………………Page…...382
The Promise of the Cities………………………………………….Page……388
“New Negroes”……………………………………………………..Page…...398
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EXAMINATION SEVEN********************************************************
PART 8: FROM A RAW DEAL TO A NEW DEAL – 1929 – 1945..Page..409
A New Deal, 1935 – 1939…………………………………………Page………416
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Family, Community, and Politics, 1933 – 1939…………………Page………426
World War II, 1940 – 1945………………………………………Page………435
PART 9: WE CHANGED THE WORLD – 1945 – 1970……...Page……..445
Jim Crow Must Go!: The Road from
Brown to Montgomery………………………………………..Page…….454
Old Order, New Order…………………………………………...Page…….470
Freedom Now!: The Student Revoluntionaries………………Page…….479
The Arduous Task: Rooting Out Fear and
Getting Out Votes...…………………………………………..Page…….492
Birmingham: The Days beyond “Forever”……………………Page……505
The Fire This Time……………………………………………...Page……514
Where Do We Go from Here?.....................................................Page……529
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EXAMINATION EIGHT & NINE************************************************
PART 10: INTO THE FIRE – 1970 – TO THE PRESENT….Page…..543
“It’s Nation Time”: From Black Feminism to Black Caucus...Page….551
Inner City Blues: Urban Poverty in the Seventies……………..Page….558
Living the Dream? The Black Middle Class……………………Page…565
“How We Gonna Make A Black Nation Rise”:
The Struggle for Political Power……………………………….Page…573
“One Nation under a Groove”: African-American
Culture since 1970……………………………………………...Page…583
“Ain’t No Stopping Us Now”: Black Politics at the
End of the Century……………………………………………Page…596
Black to the Future: Immigration and the
New Realities of Race…………………………………………Page…604
FURTHER READING
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PLEASE STUDY THE CHRONOLOGY PAGES…AT THE
BACK OF THIS BOOK.
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