Jim Crow America

Catalog description

Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow (The New Pres 2010) has drawn attention to the ways that American institutions and social systems continue to produce racial inequalities. The recent failure of federal voting rights bills in the United States Congress and the proliferation of state-led efforts to constrain voting rights have led activists to claim "Jim Crow 2.0." Using these present-day assessments as a point of departure, this course introduces students to the Jim Crow period of American history spanning the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. From the 1890s to the 1950s, Black freedoms were limited by the policies and practices of racial segregation in the Jim Crow system of American apartheid. This course critically examines Black life in Jim Crow America, from the halls of federal power, to the every-day practices of racial subjugation and resistance. It examines cross-cutting themes: how racial segregation structured the legal, social, economic, and political sectors of American life; the role of national, state, and local policy mandating racial segregation; African American modes of resistance;vigilante and state racial violence. This course will also endeavor to make connections between the consequences of anti-Black racism and the social life of other American minoritized populations. Throughout the course, as an exercise in historical Interpretation and periodization, students will consider the question: Is this current moment "Jim Crow 2.0.?" This course fulfills Dietrich College's "Contextual Thinking" general education requirement. Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/history/