Black Intellectual History: Reconstruction to Black Lives Matter
examines the political thought and practice of African Americans from the end of slavery to the era of Black Lives Matter. From the anti-lynching crusade of Ida B. Wells through to the presidency of Barack Obama this course defines “politics” broadly, ranging from movements to elect officials at the local, state, and national level to civic groups, fraternal association, religious, and cultural and educational movements that organized for political self-determination during the Age of Jim Crow segregation that gripped the nation for a century after salvery’s legal demise. A wide range of African Americans have organized themselves in public and private spheres in pursuit of political power; through women’s clubs; civil rights organizations; self-help group; labor union; institutes of higher and vocational education; the creation of the public school system; and churches, Black politics has consistently sought to reimagine American democracy as a vehicle for intersectional justice, political liberation, freedom, power, love, and compassion.