Race, Politics and Power in America

Catalog description

This course explores the pivotal question of why and how race matters so greatly to the making of politics and governance in historical and contemporary America. The course begins at the earliest formations of the U.S., underscoring the pivotal part that race played in defining citizens and rights during this era. Focus is on these foundational-period linkages to race and political rights and their political implications for the post-modern civil rights movement. Historical factors, status changes of minority communities in the U.S., and the idea of a post-racial society are compared and contrasted.