HIST 20132 - From Black Power to Black Lives Matter

Course Credit: 1
From Black Power to Black Lives Matter Since the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012 to the recent police murder of DeCynthia Clements and Stephon Clark, this nation has been undergoing a debate about race, crime, and policing. Journalists, black activists and athletes, and President Donald Trump have contributed to these often volatile discussions of police violence and crime. In this course, we will dig deeper into these issues by placing them into historical context. More specifically, students will read, write about, and discuss scholarly and popular writings on black protest against police brutality from the 1960s to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. This course will also consider other broad topics, including the criminalization of black people, the roots of mass incarceration, and black politics since the 1960s. Thus, while this course will center black protest against police violence, we will also interrogate how transformations in politics, policing, and poverty have contributed to these contemporary struggles against anti-black violence. Prerequisite(s): 1 course in history; or permission of instructor [C, HSS, W]

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