Prayer & Civil Rights

Catalog description

(AM) Prereq., WRIT 101 and HSTR 200 . Restricted to majors and minors in History or African-American Studies. This course explores the meaning of public prayer in the Civil Rights Movement. Built around the question, "Does religion help or hinder the pursuit of social change?" this class combines historical and religious studies inquiry to trace changes in civil rights activists' efforts to make use of religion. By focusing on a particular religious practice - in this case prayer - in a specific, but limited period of time, this course challenges students to consider how meaning is formed through historical action and study the social significance of religious practice. This formed through historical action and study the social significance of religious practice. This course complicates prevailing ideas about the normalcy of African-American religious practitioners' prayer, invites students to examine their assumptions about the nature of prayer, and traces how religion spilled out of sanctuaries into the streets during the civil rights era. Level: Undergraduate/Graduate. Graduate students must receive advisor approval before registering for this course.