AFR 377
Policing, Punishment, and Protest in African American History Spring 2025
Division II
Cross-listed HIST 369

Class Details

This seminar will examine the development of the criminal legal system in the United States from the early republic to the present. Topics of study will include legacies of racial slavery; convict leasing; dynamics of gendered state violence; police tactics and technologies; the Great Migration and its impact on policing in the urban North; prisoner rights movements; urban rebellions; law and order politics; the Wars on Crime and Drugs and the rise of mass incarceration. This course will pay particular attention to the distinct relationships between domestic regimes of policing and imprisonment and various Black political struggles. By placing these topics in conversation with the history of African American life and politics, this course seeks to highlight the ways in which the criminalization of Black people has circumscribed Black citizenship and inspired successive insurgent movements for reform of the American carceral system.
The Class: Format: lecture
Limit: 25
Expected: 15-20
Class#: 3471
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: Students will be graded on class participation, reading responses, an Op-Ed paper (1200-1500 words), a book review (5-7 pages). In addition, students will work in groups to develop a podcast related to course themes.
Prerequisites: None
Enrollment Preferences: History and Africana Studies majors
Distributions: Division II
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
AFR 377 Division II HIST 369 Division II
Attributes: HIST Group F Electives - U.S. + Canada

Class Grid

Updated 3:24 am

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