Course Description
A survey of African American history from the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the present, with a special emphasis on the Black struggle for freedom, this course considers how the analysis of cultural, intellectual, and political artifacts shape narratives about the experience of African Americans and their role in the development of American democracy and culture.
Course Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:
1. Deploy historical analysis of text, image, audio and visual media, and other primary artifacts to frame significant developments in African American history from 1600 to the present.
2. Delineate the varied philosophical approaches and political strategies of influential individuals and organizations in different reform eras.
3. Examine the evolution of key African American movements and their contributions to the development of American civil rights and democratic institutions.
4. Evaluate the role of literature and arts created by African Americans in their development and their contribution to American politics and culture.
5. Describe the significance and process of memorialization and memory in shaping narratives about African American history.
6. Articulate a position supported by the use of primary and secondary sources related to African American history.
7. Characterize how relationships among race, economics, politics, and natural history or natural science informed and influenced the development of slavery and equality.
8. Delineate the impact of selectivity on historical narratives, including courses, on equality.
Unit Assignments
Unit I Reflection Paper
Slave Narrative Contextualization Exercise
This reflection paper provides you with an opportunity to explore and to think critically about the context reflected within a slave narrative. Begin by selecting a slave narrative from any period to use as a primary source. You may use your favorite search engine to locate examples of slave narratives online.
Write a one-page reflection paper by exploring the items below and by identifying at least one question about American history that you could pursue by using the narrative you have chosen.
Part I: Exploring the context. Address each of the following within the reflection paper:
• Briefly describe the speaker or author of the narrative (brief biographical details).
• If identified, describe the circumstances in which they provided the narrative.
• Explain what you believe you can see of the speaker's or writer's social and cultural background and context in the narrative.
• Describe the speaker's or writer's goal in creating his/her narrative.
• List any values or assumptions that appear in the narrative.
• Explain any details about the speaker's or writer's experience that reflect on broader topics at the time.
• Determine whether you find the speaker's or writer's account credible, and why.
Part II: Review the Unit Lesson on the use of slave narratives as evidence. Reflect on what you believe you can learn about history by using this narrative, and if you might not use it for some purposes.
Use APA Style to format your paper, but there is no need to include a title page nor a reference page. List the reference of the primary source in APA Style at the top of the first page of your paper.
Information about accessing the Blackboard Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.
Unit II Article Critique
As stated previously, the course textbook reflects consideration of early and subsequent historical accounts that rest on the authors' evaluation of primary and secondary evidence. Scholars always review the literature before they formulate their theses and produce their work.
With this in mind, your task in this assignment will be to critique an argument from a peer-reviewed article, covering the period 1700-1864.
To complete this task, you will draw material from the assigned textbook reading and at least one scholarly source relevant to the topic. The textbook will help guide you to articles that are relevant to the material covered in this unit. See below for information on how to find appropriate sources.
How to Review a Source: Identifying and Evaluating the "Argument"
1. Discerning the Argument: When reading a source, ask yourself the following questions.
a. Why is the author writing this?
b. What does the author believe he/she is adding to the field?
c. What kinds of evidence does the author use?
d. What is the author's conclusion?
2. Evaluating the Argument
b. How useful do you think this source is, given what you have found in "Discerning the Argument" above? Does the source help you to narrow a topic, find a question, and evaluate evidence?
c. Compare the source you identify, and ensure that it is relevant to the material in your course textbook.
3. Finding Appropriate Sources. After reading the assigned textbook chapters and deciding how to approach the assignment based on your reading, identify an appropriate outside source that speaks to the topic(s) you will address. Innumerable examples are accessible via the Online Library. These sources will generally be articles or essays from reputable academic publications, and are available by using search engines like Academic OneFile and Academic Search Complete. If you are unfamiliar with the library or if you are having trouble accessing materials, the librarians on staff are available and happy to help.
Things to Consider in Your Search
There are a few general truths when researching online; for example, any website with a .com suffix may be trying to sell you something and therefore unreliable as academic material. As you navigate through sites, or any publication, it is necessary to ask the following questions:
• Who wrote this? You are looking for the authors and their credentials; this is not to be confused with a webmaster or site designer.
• Who published this? Is the publisher an academic journal or someone simply stating opinion not based in fact?
• Can the document be altered in any way? If the information can be added to or amended by anyone other than the administrator, the site is not appropriate for academic use. This is the core issue with many online encyclopedias like Wikipedia.
For any trustworthy source, these questions should be able to be answered clearly and without intense searching; if you cannot find this information, do not use the source.
The Assignment
Using the textbook and at least one scholarly article you have found through research, critique an argument from a peer- reviewed article that covers the period from 1700-1864. This article should cover how the following informed and influenced the development of slavery and equality: race, economics, politics, natural history, or natural science. Your critique should consist of at least two full pages.
Use APA Style to format your paper, but do not include a title or references page. Instead, simply list the references in APA Style at the end of the paper.
Information about accessing the Blackboard Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.
Unit III Essay
In a concise essay of at least two pages, respond to the following:
In the wake of the Civil War, Congress acceded to the pressure of radical Republicans to have the federal government intercede to secure African Americans' rights. During much of this period, Southern Blacks served in local offices, state legislatures, and the national Congress.
These individuals, writes Carson et al. (2011) "walked a treacherous political, social, and racial tightrope as they sought to juggle multiple constituencies, contradictory goals and their own personal safety" (p. 288).
Indeed they did. Using your textbook, and at least one other academic/scholarly source, explain how the radical Republican agenda was shaped by Black officeholders as they navigated that tightrope.
Please review the following instructions on how to locate a true academic/scholarly source. How to Review a Source: Identifying and Evaluating the "Argument"
1. Discerning the Argument: When reading a source, ask yourself the following questions;
a. Why is the author writing this?
b. What does the author believe he/she is adding to the field?
c. What kinds of evidence does the author use?
d. What is the author's conclusion?
2. Evaluating the Argument
b. How useful do you think this source is, given what you have found in "Discerning the Argument" above? Does the source help you to narrow a topic, find a question, and evaluate evidence?
c. Compare the source you identify and ensure that it is relevant to the material in your course textbook.
3. Finding Appropriate Sources. After reading the assigned textbook chapters and deciding how to approach the assignment based on your reading, identify an appropriate outside source that speaks to the topic(s) you will address.
Innumerable examples are accessible via the Online Library. These sources will generally be articles or essays from reputable academic publications, and are available by using search engines like Academic OneFile and Academic Search Complete. If you are unfamiliar with the library or if you are having trouble accessing materials, the librarians on staff are available and happy to help.
Things to Consider in Your Search
There are a few general truths when researching online; for example, any website with a .com suffix may be trying to sell you something and therefore unreliable as academic material. As you navigate through sites, or any publication, it is necessary to ask the following questions:
• Who wrote this? You are looking for the authors and their credentials; this is not to be confused with a webmaster or site designer.
• Who published this? Is the publisher an academic journal or someone simply stating opinion not based in fact?
• Can the document be altered in any way? If the information can be added to or amended by anyone other than the administrator, the site is not appropriate for academic use. This is the core issue with many online encyclopedias like Wikipedia.
For any trustworthy source, these questions should be able to be answered clearly and without intense searching; if you cannot find this information, do not use the source.
Use APA Style to format your paper, but do not include a title or references page. Instead, simply list the references in APA Style at the end of the paper.
Information about accessing the Blackboard Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.
Unit IV Essay
In the reading assignment this week, you have learned about various individuals and organizations active in the struggle for African American freedom. Choose one of these individuals or organizations and compose an essay of at least two pages in which you explain their contributions to the struggle of African Americans to obtain equal rights and freedom.
Employ your textbook and two scholarly sources to build your essay.
Use APA Style to format your paper, but do not include a title or references page. Instead, simply list the references in APA Style at the end of the paper.
Information about accessing the Blackboard Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.
Unit V Annotated Bibliography
Everything we read conveys at least two messages:
• information about a topic or what the author says, and
• the author's purpose in presenting information or what the author does.
The annotated bibliography concentrates on the purpose. Preparing an Annotated Bibliography
As discussed previously, prior to launching any research project, the researcher's interests and methods must be aligned with existing studies and placed on a map of all knowledge within his or her academic discipline. Writers look at what has been published in order to explain where their work fits on that map or, in other words, how they can add to the work of their fellow scholars.
An annotated bibliography compresses the article critique or literature review into a single paragraph, tightly focused not on what the author says but on what the author does! The annotated bibliography requires you to present analysis with as little summary of the information in the sources as possible.
So, the real lesson gained through this assignment is to shift the way we use sources, from repositories of information about a topic which we take at face value, to strategies conveying the author's point, which we apply self-consciously to our own thoughts and research.
At this point in the course, the history of history, or historiography, has demonstrated how fundamentally the world shifts when we look at different sources and ask different questions. Yet bias is always present, even if it is not apparent, and it is the purpose of the annotated bibliography to identify and evaluate that bias. C. A. Beard states the following in his 1934 article, "Written History as an Act of Faith":
What, then, is this manifestation of omniscience called history? It is, as Croce says, contemporary thought about the past....Has it not been said for a century or more that each historian who writes history is a product of his age, and that his work reflects the spirit of the times, of a nation, race, group, class, or section?....
Every student of history knows that his colleagues have been influenced in their selection and ordering of materials by their biases, prejudices, beliefs, affections, general upbringing, and experience, particularly social and economic....every written history--of a village, town, county, state, nation, race, group, class, idea, or the wide world--is a selection and arrangement of facts, of recorded fragments of past actuality.
And the selection and arrangement of facts--a combined and complex intellectual operation--is an act of choice, conviction, and interpretation respecting values, is an act of thought. Facts, multitudinous and beyond calculation, are known, but they do not select themselves or force themselves automatically into any fixed scheme of arrangement in the mind of the historian. They are selected and ordered by him as he thinks.
Analyzing Sources
The syllabus outlines the number and kinds of sources that must be used in this assignment. In the Unit II assignment, you received information on how to analyze a source.
Writing Annotations
The guide below should be reviewed before writing, and before submission, to determine whether each annotation is complete and completely focused on an analysis of the bias or argument. The annotation should be contained in a single paragraph and may be as brief as five to six sentences.
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In Annotation
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Not in Annotation
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The author's purpose, otherwise known as the thesis.
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Summary of author's topic
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The kinds and sources of evidence the author deploys, otherwise known as the argument.
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Summary of the evidence the author deploys
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Identification of any specific approach or method (like psychoanalytical, or Marxist)
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Summary of the resulting information about the topic
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An analysis of the relevance, appropriateness and persuasiveness of the evidence
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Summary of the information about the topic
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Author is the subject of sentences, for ex., "Brown argues, etc."
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Topic is subject of sentences, e.g., "The Harlem Renaissance"
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Verbs indicating analysis and argument are employed, including argues, theorizes, demonstrates, uses, applies, evaluates etc.
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Verbs indicating presentation of information are used, including narrates, covers, paints, reports, offers, or describes
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Concluding statement indicates the utility of the work to the research and proposed research project
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Evaluations like "good" or "bad" or "enjoyable" or characterizations of utility to the general reading public
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What the author does or achieves
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What the author says
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Now, in at least 400 words, prepare an annotated bibliography for three sources, including:
1. a topic statement (100 words) proposing a specific point of view, and
2. three annotations, each analyzing the argument of a peer-reviewed article on your topic.
You may not use a book review as an article.
Information about accessing the Blackboard Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.
Unit V Reflection Paper
In this reflection paper, describe the ways in which you believe the contributions made by African Americans began a movement towards the beginnings of a new American culture. Your paper should consist of a minimum of one page. Any resources used, including your textbook, should be cited and referenced using APA formatting.
Information about accessing the Blackboard Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.
Unit VI Reflection Paper
Select an image related to passive resistance of segregation during the Civil Rights Movement from 1943-1960, and submit a 250-word essay reflecting on the following:
1. the historical context of the image,
2. where the image originally appeared,
3. the intended audience,
4. a rationale for how that audience may have perceived the image,
5. how we may perceive that image today (If there is a difference between #4 and #5, suggest an explanation for that difference. If there is no difference, suggest an explanation for the sameness.), and
6. how images can delineate the different approaches to desegregation and how media impacted passive resistance.
Include a reference for the image to allow your professor to access it.
Information about accessing the Blackboard Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.
Unit VII Proposal
This assignment builds on the annotated bibliography assignment, in spirit if not in content. Considering the different kinds of evidence you have encountered in the course, your task is to select any research area you believe is significant to understanding, presenting, and memorializing the struggle for African American equality in America.
Complete a proposal for a research paper that includes the highlighted elements below. Materials already used or prepared for the course may be adapted for use, but you do not have to explore topics or use materials previously created. If materials already submitted are used, these must be incorporated into a new discussion.
Abstract: In 80 to 100 words, provide a brief overview of a topic related to the struggle for freedom you would like to explore. The abstract should touch on all of the elements below.
Rationale: In a paper of at least three pages, explain the specific ideas and issues that seem relevant to your research interests by addressing the following questions. These will provide a rationale explaining why your area of interest is relevant.
1. What are the issues other scholars see as related to your topic? Integrate into your rationale the work of at least three scholars published in peer-reviewed academic journals. The sources for this section should be analyzed and discussed as if you were preparing an annotation for them.
2. Discuss how course concepts are related to, and inform your choice of research question.
3. Provide an argument or line of reasoning explaining how your ideas are related to existing scholarship.
4. How will your work result in significant information, narratives, or resources that could be used by other scholars?
Personal Significance: In no less than 250 words, discuss the significance of your proposed research to your personal and professional life.
Bibliography: Provide a bibliography in the usual APA format. Include at least 3 articles (other than reviews) published in peer-reviewed journals and at least three media sources.
Information about accessing the Blackboard Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.
Unit VIII Reflection Paper
Select one image, video, or quotation from a contemporary media source, and discuss the following:
1. In at least one page, how does your selection reflect a larger narrative related to the African American struggle for freedom?
2. In at least two pages, explain why you agree or disagree with the larger narrative you perceived and how you would depict or convey your point of view, whether differently or similarly. For example, would you change what people see or hear in the background? Would you attempt to depict a different emotion?