African American History

Catalog description

This course offers an intensive study of how African Americans shaped and contributed to American history. The course focuses on the experiences of African Americans in the social, economic, and political history of the United States from the era of Reconstruction to the present. Topics include the lives of African Americans during Reconstruction, the Great Migrations, the Harlem Renaissance, responses to anti-black racism, the rise of the modern civil rights movement, and the evolving complexities of black identity. The course engages students in a critical examination of the variegated patterns of African Americans' perspectives on American social conditions in the late nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Students consider landmark contributions in African American historiography. Students produce a research paper, review essay, or similar signature work in history aligned with the course topics. This course meets the General Education requirement for Community and Cultural Contexts.