African Americans, Race, and the Fight for Reparations

Catalog description

By the onset of the 21st century, African American history and interdisciplinary programs in Black studies had emerged at the center of our reinterpretation of the American experience. And with this new understanding of the nation's history there has been a growing interest in the relationship of history to public policy, race, human injustice, and resulting redress movements in comparative and historical perspective. Accordingly, this course will not only explore the case for reparations by analyzing the inequities of enslavement, Jim Crow, and post-industrial capitalism. It will examine the ongoing fight for reparations among people of African descent from the early postbellum years after the Civil War through the Black Lives Matter Movement in recent times. In addition to examining the experiences of Blacks in the United States, however, this course will consider other experiences around the globe: Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and Japanese Americans within the United States; the Holocaust in Germany; Japan's so-called "comfort women" system of sexual exploitation; and South Africa's movement toward reconciliation and reparations since the fall of apartheid.