This course examines African American struggles for freedom in the United States, beginning, briefly, with the transition from slavery to freedom in the 19th century. We will then focus on Black activism during the ‘long’ Civil Rights Movement, which lasted over the entire 20th century, from protests against segregation and disenfranchisement in the Jim Crow South, Ida B. Wells’ antilynching campaign, the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Great Migration of African Americans north where they also encountered racism and discrimination, gains and setbacks during the eras of World War I and II, through the emergence of the modern Civil Rights Movement in 1954 and its evolution over the 1960s toward Black Power, to the legacy and fate of the Movement in the last quarter of the 20th century.
The course will emphasize the depth and breadth of African American oppositional spirit and political activity, including culture and religion, as well as the important achievements and remaining challenges of the struggle for Black equality in the USA. This course is taught concurrently with History 308, and students share a lecture time. However, History 208 differs from History 308 in that students have fewer readings, separate tutorial, and different assessment.