Freedom's First Generation: African American Life and Work, from the Civil War to World War II

Catalog description

HIST/ AFAM 210 explores the context and events that shaped African American life during the post-abolition period from the U.S. Civil War until WW II. The course begins with a comparative examination of the decline of African slavery and of emancipation throughout the Americas, and then focuses on Black lives in the United States. The course explores a wide range of topics, including: Black identity in the U.S., the criminalization and disposability of Black bodies, Reconstruction, Jim Crow Laws, lynching, forced labor, the rise of African American leadership, gender and reproduction under slavery and in freedom, the development of protest strategies, the impact of industrialization and urbanization, and the significance of African American culture and art.