The Civil Rights Movement

Catalog description

This course will examine the classical phase of the African American Civil Rights Movement between the years 1954 and 1968. Focusing primarily on the American South, this class will explore the nature of Jim Crow-era racial segregation and the origins and effects of the massive rise in social protests that fundamentally reshaped race in the United States of America and influenced social and political movements across the world. We will study iconic civil rights campaigns and legendary figures, such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the 1964 Freedom Summer, and Fannie Lou Hamer, while also closely examining the activism of lesser-known actors and analyzing how dramatic racial alterations affected the lives of everyday people.