AAAD-A 356: African American History II

Course Description:

This course will survey the history of African Americans from 1877-present. We will examine
the nature and meaning of race in U.S. society and its affect on the lives of African Americans.
Our aim is to understand that the concept of race is of recent origin, resulting from the ways of
thinking that emerge in Europe and North America over the past few hundred years. We focus
on race as a social and cultural category for the manner in which it shapes contemporary
American life. Major topics of discussion will include: lynching, citizenship, black freedom
struggle, diversity, and current race relations. Students shall engage the broad complexities,
achievements and contradictions that mark the African American odyssey via an in-depth
engagement with class lectures, course readings (which include secondary as well as primary
source materials: e.g. historical documents, speeches and correspondence), and class discussions.
Student Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, the student should have demonstrated an ability to critically evaluate
primary sources and utilize them as evidence of historical development. In addition, students
should have developed a complex understanding of and the ability to analyze the nature and
meaning of freedom and citizenship in the history of America. Students should also be able to
explain key concepts, themes, and events of African American history. Students should have
gained knowledge on the intersectionality of race, gender, and class in African American history.
Course Goals and Objectives
The student will gain critical thinking skills and an appreciation for the ways in which African
American communities have contributed to American politics, culture, and society.
Required Readings:

The books listed below are required readings. They can each be purchased at the campus book
store. Articles and primary sources for this class are posted on the course website. You are
responsible for purchasing and/or knowing how to access web copies of all assigned readings.

Deborah Gray White, et. al., Freedom on my Mind, Third Edition, Vol II.

Grading:
Your grade will consist of five parts: midterm, leading class discussion, final paper, quizzes, and
class participation. Midterm: There will be one midterm exam. Lead Discussion: You will be
responsible for leading at least one discussion. Final Paper: Each student is required to submit a
6-8 page final paper. Quiz: There will be two quizzes. Participation: As mentioned previously,
this is a discussion based seminar. Class participation is required and consists of a significant
portion of your overall grade! Class attendance is part of your participation grade. There is
no make-up work for class participation—one cannot make up for a discussion when one did
not participate in a discussion due to an absence.
1. Lead discussion (15%)
2. Class participation (25%)
3. Midterm (15%)
4. Quiz (15%)
5. Final Paper (30%) Due Finals Week

Course Requirements:
Each student is required to complete the assigned readings and arrive at class on-time and be
prepared to discuss that week’s assigned readings. Although this is a lecture course, this is also a
discussion-based course and class participation is a significant factor in each student’s overall
grade for the course (see grade breakdown above). Therefore, regular class attendance is
required.
Course Policy on Attendance:
We meet together 30 times during the semester. One absence is acceptable for any reason but
will hurt your participation grade. Any more than one absence must be excused by written
documentation of an emergency. Obviously, if you miss class, the participation portion of your
grade will also suffer. Two unexcused absences earn you an automatic “F” for the class.
Excused absences will be given at instructor’s discretion only with proof as defined by IU’s
Student Handbook.
Verification of Absences: IU’s policy states that faculty have the right to request "appropriate
verification" when students claim an excused absence because of illness or death in the family.
The University Health Services (UHS) provides a printed statement that specifies that the UHS
does not give excuses for absences from class due to illness or injury. It will be possible for
these forms to be date stamped to show that a student visited University Health Services. It does
not mean, however, that a student was actually seen by a physician or a nurse. For further
verification that a student kept an appointment with University Health Services (especially when
there has been multiple or prolonged absences from class), the student will need to sign a release
of information that will give permission for the staff to talk with UHS. This form is available on
the UHS Web Page.
Course Policy on Academic Accommodations due to disability: If you have a documented
disability that requires academic accommodations, please see me as soon as possible during
scheduled office hours. In order to receive accommodations in this course, you must provide me
with a Memorandum of Accommodation from the IU Office of Disability Services for
coordination of campus disability services available to students with disabilities.
Participation:
Your participation is essential, not only in terms of your grade, but also in order to make our
discussions enjoyable, interesting, and useful. Obviously, the less reading and thinking you do,
the less useful and interesting your contributions will be. In our discussions, feel free to offer
your own interpretations of the readings, films, and lectures. All thoughtful comments,
courteously expressed, are welcome; irrelevant outbursts are not. Quality is preferable to
quantity.
Course Policy on Submission of Assignments:
All assignments and exams shall be completed on the day they are scheduled. If you must miss
an assignment or an exam, please notify the instructor in order to schedule all make-up
assignments.
Courtesy, Classroom Behavior, Decorum and Civility: The university, college, and
department has a commitment to respect the dignity of all and to value differences among
members of our academic community. There exist the role discussion and debate in academic
discovery and the right of all to respectfully disagree from time-to-time. Students clearly have
the right to take reasoned exception and to voice opinions contrary to those offered by the
instructor and/or other students. Equally, a faculty member has the right -- and the responsibility
-- to ensure that all academic discourse occurs in a context characterized by respect and civility.
Obviously, the accepted level of civility would not include attacks of a personal nature or
statements denigrating another on the basis of race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, age,
national/regional origin or other such irrelevant factors.

Crucial to our collegial endeavor is to respect your fellow scholars and respect yourself by
always giving your best effort and by treating everyone with consideration. In a classroom, such
consideration includes, among other things: arriving a few minutes early so that our discussions
can begin on time; treating all opinions with the respect you trust your own opinions will receive;
not creating distractions, such as extraneous private conversations and ringing cell phones or
beepers. Food and drink are permitted, as long as you consume them courteously.
Expectations:
At the minimum, you are expected to do the assigned readings and viewings each week,
complete assignments on time with your best effort, and contribute every week to our
discussions. Beyond the minimum expectations, you should strive to contribute further by being
an active participant -- curious, imaginative, creative. In your readings and in our discussions
use the gift of your intelligence. When there is anything you feel you do not fully understand,
ask questions. In our class, there are no dumb questions, no wrong answers; there are only
opportunities to learn. As scholars, in a community of scholars, we are here to help each other
learn. Whenever you feel you need it, always seek help from your fellow students and your
professor.
As Your Professor:
You can expect me to set the agenda for our discussions each week and to lead us through
that agenda. I will do my best to make our discussions valuable and engaging for you. You
can expect me to keep you informed as to your progress and current grade in the class.
You can expect that, on our intellectual journey, I will be your companion and your ally.
I’m here to help you in every way I can, and I’m happy and honored to do it.
Office Hours:
I invite each of you to take advantage of my office hours. At that time, we can expand upon our
class discussions, or talk about whatever you have on your mind. Office hours are also a very
useful time to discuss your writing assignments. Writing is a fundamental element of the
historical craft, and your grade will depend on the quality of the arguments you develop in the
writing assignments and exams, as well as your skill in expressing your ideas and arguments.
Especially in the preparation of your assigned essays and the mid-term and final exams, I
encourage you to discuss with me your ideas and any questions you may have.
Honesty, Academic Integrity, Cheating, and Plagiarism:
Your work must be precisely that, YOUR work. In our discussions, and especially in your
writing, when your argument is based on a passage, a quotation, or an idea from a book, article,
or film, you must attribute that material -- tell us where it comes from. Misrepresenting others’
work as one’s own in the form of cheating or plagiarism is unethical and will lead to those
penalties outlined in the Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct and Procedures
for Bloomington Campus (http://www.iu.edu/~code/).
As a scholar, a valued and respected member of a community of scholars, you are expected to
specify the source(s) of your intellectual product. This is required not only to ensure intellectual
honesty, but also to allow others to penetrate to the roots of your thought and ideas, so that, from
those roots, their own ideas may branch, bud, and ultimately blossom to produce new
knowledge.
Intellectual honesty is essential to the work of the scholar and to the life of the academy.
Consequently, the penalties for plagiarism are severe. These include, but are not limited to,
failing this class, being expelled from the university, losing the respect of others, squandering
your self-respect, and betraying your intellectual potential.
The most insignificant, most clumsily conceived product of your own intelligence is infinitely
more valuable and more worthy than the greatest and most graceful concept stolen from another.
Therefore, it is far better to ask for an extension than to turn in a plagiarized paper on time. A
respectable scholar will never plagiarize or cheat in any way.
Reading:
The readings are essential. If you have not yet bought the books, buy them today! Begin
reading immediately. Don’t fall behind in your reading. If you do, you will have a very difficult
time following what is going on in the class. So that you can more readily attribute your
comments, you are expected to bring your books and printed on-line class content with you to
class.
Confidence:
Especially if this is your first year, these expectations and requirements may seem
intimidating. Don’t worry. You have earned a place in this university because you are
equal to the challenge.
Course Policy on Group Work and Student Collaboration (if applicable):
The syllabi for courses within which students are expected to engage in group learning,
team projects, or other collaborative, course-related activities must provide explicit
explication of how individual student performance will be assessed in such shared learning
activities. Requiring as part of the group assignment that the team must explain the
involvement of each member in the project and/or actually assess the contribution of each
other to the final product may encourage balanced and active participation and
contribution by all group members. If student peer assessment is included, it should not be
the only evaluation made of individual student performance.
There is no doubt you have the talent. It is up to you to make the effort.
EXTRA
We will do this using a variety of tools. Among these will be brief writing assignments, quizzes,
and group discussions of the assigned readings, all of which are intended to aid in your
development of the skills of critical thinking.
This is a discussion seminar, not a lecture.
Learning to complete assignments on time develops knowledge and self-discipline. Learning to
express yourself well in conversation and in writing develops your intellect and will prove
essential to your future success in whatever you choose to do.

Week 1-2: (1/10-1/12, 1/17-1/19) Race Matters: Why Race Is Not a Biological Concept/ Why
Race Is Socially Constructed
Lucius Outlaw, “Toward a Critical Theory of ‘Race’”, 58-78
Mary Waters, “Immigrants and American Race Relations”, 326-344
Joe R. Feagin and Melvin P. Sikes, “The Continuing Significance of Race”, 1-36
Film: Race: The Power of an Illusion: The Difference Between Us

Week 3: No Class 1/24-1/26

Week 4: (1/31-2/2): Turn of the Twentieth Century

Freedom on My Mind, chapter 8-9
W. E. B Dubois, Souls of Black Folks, in Norton Anthology of African American Literature
(1997)
Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery, selections
Ida B. Wells, A Red Record, in Norton Anthology of African American Literature (1997)
Lynching-Presentation
Film: Slavery by Another Name

Week 5: No Class 2/7-2/9

Week 6: (2/14, 2/16): Great Migration, WWII and Race/Southern Segregation and the
Roots of Black Power
Freedom on My Mind, chapters 10-11
Carol Anderson, White Rage, “Derailing the Great Migration”, 39-66.
Robin Kelley, "Riddle of the Zoot," in Race Rebels, 161-181
Film: Zoot Suit Riots
Film: Eyes on the Prize: Awakening
Quiz 1—2/14 (online)

Week 7: (2/21-2/23): Civil Rights Movement

Freedom on My Mind, chapter 12-13
Martin Luther King, “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, in Why We Can’t Wait (1964)
Malcolm X, “Ballot of the Bullet” speech—Reading and Audio
Film: Negroes with Guns

Week 8: No Class 2/28-3/2:

Week 9: (3/7-3/9): Black Power

Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power: Its Needs and Substance”, Black
Power: The Politics of Liberation in America, p. 34-56
Sylviane Diouf and Komozi Woodard, Black Power 50, p iv-28
BPP 10 Point Platform
Film: Race: The Power of an Illusion: The House We Live in
Film: Freedom Summer
Week 10: Spring Break

Week 11-12: (3/21-3/23, 3/28-3/30): Black Freedom Struggle; Black Urban Communities
and De-industrialization, Emergence of Hip Hop
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow, 1-136
Film: Letter to the President: Streets Get Political
Film: Eyes on the Prize: Back to the Movement
Film: Murder of Fred Hampton
MIDTERM 3/30 Online

Week 13: (4/4-4/6): War on Drugs/Mass Incarceration

Michelle Alexander, New Jim Crow, 137-248
Jeff Cohen, “R.I.P. Gary Webb -- Unembedded Reporter”, Common Dreams News Center
Film: The 13th

Week 14: (4/11-/4/13): 1990s, Race and Urban Turmoil (O.J. Simpsons Trial)
Freedom on My Mind, chapter 14-15
Darnell Hunt, O.J. Simpson: Facts and Fictions, 17-51
Film: O.J. Simpson: A Lesson in Black and White

Week 15: (4/18-4/20): Black and Brown Voter Disenfranchisement (2000/2004 Bush
Elections)
Film: American Blackout
Quiz 2—4/20

Week 16: (4/25-4/27): Hurricane Katrina/Jena 6, Black Lives Matter

Michael Eric Dyson, Come Hell or Highwater, 16-33
David Dante Troutt, After the Storm, 87-110
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, p. 135-220
Film: Stay Woke: Black Lives Matter Documentary
Film: When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Parts [Parts 1 & 2]
Film: Jena 6