Afro-American Studies 291G - S-ReadingWriting&Citizenship

Struggles for equity in education have always been central to African-American strategies for advancement. African-American ideas about how to make educational equity a reality, however, have varied greatly over time. This course seeks to examine how various issues in African-American education have evolved throughout the twentieth Century. The class will begin with the dynamic struggle of Boston?s African American community to desegregate public education during the pre-civil war decade. We will cover other critical campaigns in the Reconstruction, Jim Crow and Civil Rights/Black Power eras.
By exploring a range of critical perspectives on black educational history, students will begin to identify specific research questions. This course will require students to become familiar with resource materials found in the library research databases and in the W.E. B. Dubois Special Collection located at UMASS. You will also have several opportunities to develop your abilities to analyze primary documents in education during classroom discussions. Reading materials will cover a wide range of areas of education, such as school building on the local level, desegregation, competing educational philosophies, Black Colleges and Universities, school boycotts, Black teachers and Civil Rights Movement and early childhood education. You will notice many gaps in the existing literature.