HIST 202
From the Atlantic Slave Trade to Black Panther: Africa and the United States Fall 2018
Division II Difference, Power, and Equity
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This course introduces the history of Africa since the eighteenth century by exploring the connections between the African continent and United States. By taking a pan-African and international approach, the class will highlight how the histories of both places have been deeply intertwined. The course is organized around four themes. The first explores the impact of African enslavement on both continents and the way African social practices were carried across the ocean and transformed by slavery and abolition. We will then turn to the ¿back to Africa¿ movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and explore why different groups of African-Americans sought to return to the continent of their origin, and what impact this had on those living in Africa. The third part of the class shows how the US government and non-governmental organizations became deeply involved in Africa beginning in the second half of the twentieth century. The final section explores the important links between Black freedom movements in the United States and anti-colonial and anti-apartheid movements in Africa¿including recent connections between the Black Lives Matter movement and student activists in South Africa.