AFR 279
African American History Since 1865 Fall 2024
Division II
Cross-listed HIST 279

This course provides an introduction to the history of African Americans from the post-emancipation era to the present day. Focusing on the collective and individual life experiences of African Americans, it will highlight the actors, organizations, and ideas that have been central to the African American experience. We will examine struggles for equality, justice, citizenship, and self-determination and the various ways African Americans have sought to achieve these ends. By the end of the semester students will have a basic understanding of core topics in African American history such as Reconstruction and Redemption; the rise of Jim Crow segregation; urban migrations and the “New Negro”; the Civil Rights Movement, in its Northern and Southern manifestations; the movement for Black Power and its antecedents; the rise of mass incarceration in the post-Civil Rights Era. The course will conclude with a discussion of the Presidency of Barack Obama and the Black Lives Matter Movement.