WMST 309: Black Social Movements: Gendering of Violence and Activism

WMST 309-001: Black Social Mov Violnce/Activ
(Fall 2018)

12:00 PM to 01:15 PM TR

Music Theater Building 1004

Section Information for Fall 2018

The course examines the underlying causes of the increased violence and oppression African Americans faced post-Reconstruction and the organizational responses of blacks to the drastic curtailment of their basic rights. During this period of Jim Crow ascendancy, African American life was circumscribed by race riots and lynching, police brutality, segregation, job exclusion, housing discrimination, unequal educational opportunities and disfranchisement. Race and gender ideology figured prominently in white justification for violence and the restrictions meted out against blacks. In addition to examining the changing political and economic conditions that gave rise to various protest and civil rights organizations and movements, the course analyzes the different personalities and ideologies of leaders in these organizations, explores the class, color, race, and intergenerational divisions that sometimes impeded a movement’s effectiveness, and investigates the gender politics of the organizations and the gendered meanings of what it meant to be black and white in America.  The organizations that form part of this course’s study include the Tuskegee Machine, the Afro-American Council, the Niagara Movement, the National Association of Colored Women, the NAACP, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, the Father Divine Peace Mission, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the People’s Committee, and the March on Washington Movement.

 

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Course Information from the University Catalog

Credits: 3

Examines racialized gendered conceptions of popular culture, violence, and the legal system and their role in structuring systems of segregation, discrimination and exclusion. Looks at the gendered strategies and conflicts of organizations that arose to combat racial violence and overturn legal and social barriers to equal opportunity and citizenship rights. Limited to three attempts.
Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.

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