Comparative African American Cultures
History 315
Fall 2001
Niccolls Building 12 T,Th 12:30-1:45

Dale T. Graden 
Office: Administration 305 A
Office Hours: Monday 3:30 to 4:30 or by appointment 
Office Telephone: 885-8956
Email: Graden@uidaho.edu
Web: www.its.uidaho.edu/Graden/

The purpose of this course is to offer an overview of African American history and cultural expression in the United States and other regions of the Americas from the 19th century to the present. Through readings, discussion, lectures, and films, we shall discuss some of the historical forces that have influenced African Americans and the societies in which they live.

It is imperative that you attend the classes, and that you do the readings. When it is noted discussion, please come prepared to discuss. The quality of the discourse in the classroom depends upon your preparation and commitment. Do not hesitate to ask questions at any time in the class. Please, feel free to challenge my interpretations of history and culture or share with other members of the section your own insights. My days are enhanced significantly when I learn about new ideas and your perspectives. My goal is for this to be one of the great learning experiences in your journey.

I reserve the right to determine a grade based on attendance and participation. If you miss more than five classes during the semester, your final grade will drop by a grade. If you cannot attend a class for health or other reasons, please leave a note in my mailbox in the department of history (Admin 315) or send a message via email to let me know. I pay close attention to attendance. I emphasize to you that your involvement makes a class of this nature a worthwhile endeavor for everyone.

There will be a one-hour mid-term exam and a final examination. There are also two short papers of two to four (2-4) typed pages required. Everyone is required to write on W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk; this short paper is due in class on Tuesday, September 18th. The second paper is chosen from two other options (books by Twine and Danticat) and is due on the date noted on the syllabus. You are welcome to substitute the suggested book for paper number two with a reading of your own choosing. Just let me know in advance what book you have chosen. Each paper is worth twenty (20) points, the hour mid-term exam is worth twenty (20) points, the final exam is worth thirty (30) points, and your participation is worth ten (10) points.

The two short papers of two to four pages (2-4 pages) are assigned to help you to learn how to write effectively and to ensure that you come to the specific discussion meeting prepared to talk about your ideas and interpretations. These essays should address some theme(s) that you consider relevant from the assigned reading. The short paper is not a “book report.” Rather, it is a critique of the book that you have read. I want to read about your ideas and observations and critical analysis, and not an overview of what the author has written. Show me that you have read and thought about the book. According to the law of effective writing, the paper should begin with an introduction, and the last sentence of the introductory paragraph should inform the reader (me) of the central theme or focus of the critique. Then construct coherent paragraphs that analyze in a logical manner the topic. Finally, finish with a conclusion.

Please, write the paper a few days before the due date, so that you can return to the computer at least once before you hand it to me. This will enable you to make corrections and refinements. I have read hundreds of these short papers, and know when someone has scribbled down a bunch of ideas the night before and when the assignment has been approached seriously. I believe that these short papers are among the most important exercises that you can do as a student in a university. And you have asked why?!! Because the majority of students graduate from universities and colleges across the land unable to write 3-4 coherent pages on a specific topic or reading. I hope that you find the readings challenging and stimulating. In other words, I hope that the assigned readings make you feel like you want to take pen (computer) in hand to write down your ideas. The discussion offers a great opportunity for you to share with the class your ideas, impressions, sentiments, worldview, etc. I am convinced that we all have much to gain by engaging in a reasoned and critical dialogue with each other, no matter how much you might agree or disagree with the viewpoint of other persons. Late papers will not be accepted. You are welcome to write as many papers as you like, and such initiatives will be considered in my final evaluation of your work and involvement in this course. Also, I encourage you to take advantage of the great opportunities that are available to you at the UI writing center.

The New York Times is available at a very rate for UI students during this spring semester. You can also read it daily online on the world wide web. This newspaper provides insightful domestic and international coverage of stories and themes related to race. I encourage you to subscribe and read or skim this newspaper and others every day.

The following books are available at the UI bookstore and are on reserve at the library:

Joe William Trotter, Jr., The African American Experience
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
France Winddance Twine, Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White Supremacy in Brazil
Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory: A Novel
María de los Reyes Castillo Bueno, Reyíta: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century
NACLA: Report on the Americas, The Social Origins of Race: Race and Racism in the Americas, Part One

Week One: Nineteenth-century slavery across the Americas

Reading: Trotter, The African American Experience, 26-79.

August 28: Introduction
August 30: International Slave Trade and slave systems

Week Two: Slave Resistance, Civil War, and Reconstruction in the US

Reading: Trotter, The African American Experience, 183-235; begin Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

September 4: Discussion: Reconstruction, “America’s Unfinished Revolution”
September 6: film: “Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice”

Week Three: The “Redeemed South”, 1880s-1920s

Reading: conclude Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk; recommended is Trotter, The African American Experience, 269-342.

September 11: “A Rage for Order”: Jim Crow laws, segregation, movement to the north and west
September 13: film: “W.E.B. Du Bois of Great Barrington”

Week Four: The “new empire” of the United States, 1860s to 1920s

September 18: first required critique due on Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk and discussion
September 20: Race and empire

Week Five: International Renaissance, 1915-1930s

Reading: Trotter, The African American Experience, 402-33.

September 25 film: “Against the Odds: The Artists of the Harlem Renaissance”
September 27 Lot’s happening: New York, São Paulo, the Caribbean, Paris in the 1920s

Week Six: Afro-Cubans in the 20th century

Reading: María Casillo Bueno, Reyíta, all

October 2: José Marti and the legacies of the Spanish-Cuban-American War
October 4: 1959 and after: Post-revolutionary Cuba

Week Seven: World War One, International Depression, World War Two

October 9: midterm exam
October 11 film: “The Great Depression: To Be Somebody.” Recommended reading is Trotter, The African American Experience, 434-59.

Week Eight: Cold War and McCarthyism, 1945-1960

Reading: Trotter, The African American Experience, 517-45.

October 16: How did the Cold War hinder and help African Americans in the US? And how did the Cold War influence the liberation movements in Africa?
October 18 film: “Lena Horne: In Her Own Words”

Week Nine: Afro-Brazilians in the 20th century

Reading: begin Twine, Racism in a Racial Democracy

October 23: Favelas, police, rap music and culture in Brazil 
October 25: Afro-Brazilian music Renaissance: “Gil and Milton—Milton and Gil”

Week Ten: Brazil and Myth of Racial Democracy

Reading: conclude Twine, Racism in a Racial Democracy. 
Recommended is Medea Benjamin and Maisa Mendonça, Benedita da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian Woman’s Story of Politics and Love and Abdias do Nascimento, Brazil: Mixture or Massacre. Essays in the Genocide of a Black People. 

October 30: Discussion of Twine and critique number two is due
November 1: The 1960s across the Americas

Week Eleven: Black Power Movement 

Reading: Trotter, The African American Experience, 546-603; and begin Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory

November 6 film: “Malcolm X: Make it Plain”
November 8 Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Maya Angelou: Legacies

Week Twelve: Haiti, Papa Doc, Jean-Bertrande Aristide, and the Haitian Diaspora in the US

Reading: conclude Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory

November 13: Haiti in the 20th century
November 15: discussion of Danticat novel and critique number three is due

Thanksgiving

Week Thirteen: Reflections on Race Relations in the US (away at conference)

Reading: Trotter, The African American Experience, 604-38. 

November 27 See video together in class: “Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill: Public Hearing, Private Pain”
November 29 See video together in class, “Frontline: The Two Nations of Black America.”

Week Fourteen: Race Relations in the Americas

Reading: NACLA, “The Social Origins of Race,” pages 15-46, your choice

December 4 Race and class; discussion of two films
December 6 Who was Bob Marley?

Week Fifteen: Why Comparative History and Culture? 

Reading: Joseph E. Harris, “The Dynamics of the Global African Diaspora,” on reserve. Recommended is John Hope Franklin, “Ethnicity in American Life: The Historical Perspective,” and David Brion Davis, “Looking at Slavery from Broader Perspectives,” both on reserve.

December 11 Discussion
December 13 Conclusions

Final Exam: Tuesday, December 18th, 1-3 pm

Selected Bibliography

International Slave Trade, Slavery, Emancipation:

John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1680
Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800
Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery
Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger
James Walvin, Black Ivory: A History of British Slavery
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
Stelamaris Coser, Bridging the Americas: The Literature of Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison, and Gayl Jones

Caribbean:

Hilary Beckles and Verene Shepherd, eds., Caribbean Slave Society and Economy
Barbara Bush, Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650-1838
Franklin W. Knight and Colin Palmer, eds., The Modern Caribbean
Fernando Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar, trans. Harriet De Onis (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995 [1947])
Miguel Barnet, Biography of a Runaway Slave
Walter Rodney, A History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881-1905
Martin Ros, Night of Fire: The Black Napoleon and the Battle for Haiti, trans. Karin Ford-Treep

Brazil:

Robert Edgar Conrad, Children of God's Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil
João José Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia, trans. Arthur Brakel
Hendrik Kraay, Culture and Politics in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Afro-Bahia
Ruth Landes, City of Women
Amelia Simpson, Xuxa: The Mega-Marketing of Gender, Race, and Modernity
Abdias do Nascimento, Brazil: Mixture or Massacre; Essays on the Genocide of a Black People
Kim D. Butler, Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition São Paulo and Salvador
Phyllis Galembo, Divine Inspiration: From Benin to Bahia

US:

John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, 8th edition
Adam Fairclough, Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality, 1890-2000
Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America
Robert William Fogel, Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery
Winthrop Jordan, White over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812
C. Peter Ripley, et.al., Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and Emancipation
Paul Goodman, Of One Blood: Abolitionism and the Origins of Racial Equality
Hayward Gallery and University of California Press, Rhapsodies in Black: Art of the Harlem Renaissance
Willie E. Gary et.al., "Making the Case for Racial Reparations: Does America owe a debt to the descendants of its slaves," Harper's Magazine, November 2000, 37-51.

Some web sites of interest

www.yaleslavery.com
http://www.thenation.com/ and to the the section entitled "Voices from Black History"