Political Science 203 and African-American Studies
223
Fall 2002
Mondays 2-4:40
University of Rochester
Twentieth-Century African-American Political
Thought
Professor
Harris
Harkness
Hall 334
Office
Hours: Thursdays, 2-4 or by appointment
E-mail:
fredrick.harris@rochester.edu.
Office
Hours: Thursdays 2-4 or by appointment.
This
course surveys the political and social thought of African-Americans during the
20th century. It will consider the social, political, and historical context of
political ideologies in black communities, from the standpoint of early thinkers
and activists such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and Ida B.
Wells-Barnett to post-World War II thinkers such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther
King, bell hooks, Cornel West, among others. The course will critically assess
such perspectives as liberalism, nationalism, feminism, conservatism, and
Marxism as considered by important black thinkers of the century. The course
approaches the study of African Americans political and social thought from
theoretical and historical perspectives. Our point of departure is the late 19th
century, which will allow us to foreground debates that emerge and re-emerge
throughout the 20th century about what are the best strategies for
African-Americans to pursue freedom and equal opportunity in the United States.
The central thrust of the course will be 1) identifying the issues considered by
thinkers and the positions they take; 2) locating debates within the context of
the political situation of blacks; and 3) trying to establish links between
debates in the past to contemporary black political
discourse.
Course
Expectations and Requirements
This
is a seminar course. Each seminar participant is considered a full participant,
not simply a spectator. Therefore, I expect participants to regularly attend
class and actively participate in class discussions. You should bring the
readings with you to seminar. I will take attendance weekly. Your class
participation will be based on my assessment of how closely you have read the
assigned readings. As part of your class participation grade you will be
required to participate in group presentations. These presentations are arranged
by me randomly assigning class members into groups. Each group will be given a pre-assigned
topic.
Group
Presentations
To
fulfill this assignment, your group must: a) confer; b) come up with a fifteen
(15) minute dramatization that creatively summarizes and draws upon points of
controversy among the authors or text for that topic; and (c) present an
interesting set of questions (at least one per group member that is unique and
no less than twenty words) to spark class discussion. Each group member should
put her or his name next to the questions(s) she or he contributed. On the day
of class, type-out and submit these questions (through e-mail) to me by 12 noon
on the day of the seminar. Presentations, along with regular class
participation, are worth 20% of your grade.
Written
Assignments
You
are required to write 5 summary/critique papers of 4-5 page length. Three (3) of
these papers must be turned in by October 23rd. All papers are due at the beginning of
each seminar. Late papers will only be accepted with prior permission from
me. You have a choice of which seminar readings you will write from. However, if
you are giving a group presentation you will not be able to submit a writing
assignment for that week. You are to identity the main arguments of the writers
and, when appropriate, compare and contrast their arguments. Be sure to include
all of that week's readings in your essay. Be creative in these essays and be
sure to demonstrate critical thinking in your assessment of the readings.
However, critical perspectives should be written after you have presented the
main points of the argument. These short papers are worth 40% of your
grade.
Final
Paper
You
have to write a research paper which challenges you to re-examine the
controversial questions we have examined in class. The paper should be connected
to the ideologies covered in the course: liberalism, nationalism, feminism,
conservatism, or Marxism. You can either 1) chose a historical period to examine
various thinkers (e.g. turn of the twentieth century, period of the "great
migration," Cold War era, civil rights movement, black power movement,
post-civil rights era) or compare and contrast specific thinkers (e.g. W.E.B.
DuBois, Booker T. Washington, A. Phillip Randolph Angela Davis, Clarence
Thomas). A one page paper proposal is due to me by November 4th. Your
paper proposal should include a question of interest to you and why this
question is of relevance to African-American political thought. This
assignment is worth 40% of the grade.
Required
Texts:
Manning
Marable and Leith Mullings. Ed. 2000. Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of
Resistence, Reform and Renewal.
Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers,
Inc.
James
Baldwin. 1993. The Fire Next Time. New York: Vintage
Press.
Adolph
Reed, Jr. 2000. Class Notes: Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the
American Scene. New York: The New Press.
September
9th: Introduction
September
16th: Historical and Theoretical Context of Black Thought
Kevin
Gaines, "Introduction" from Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics,
and Culture in the Twentieth Century, 1-17. (reserve)
Michael
Dawson, "The Contours of African-American Thought," from Black Visions.
(reserve)
Marable
and Mullings, "Introduction," pp. vii-xxv (9), and
119-124.
September
23rd: The Emergence of Black Thought during the Nadir
Robert
Harlan, "Migration is the Only Remedy for Our Wrongs,"
1879
<reserve>
Booker
T. Washington, "The Atlanta Compromise,” “The
Fruits of Industrial Training,” “My
View of Segregation Laws,”
in Marable and Mullings, 181-198.
W.E.B.
DuBois, "Excerpts from the Souls of Black Folk," Marable and Mullings, 22 1
-226.
W.E.B.
DuBois, "The Talented Tenth," September 1903
<http://douizlass.speech.nwu.edu/dubo-bO5.htm>
W.E.B.
DuBois “Of
Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,"" 1903
<http://www.bartleby.com/114/3.html>
Bishop
Henry McNeal Turner, "Justice or Emigration Should Be Our
Watch
Word,”
1893.
<reserve>
Adolph
Reed, "Romancing Jim Crow," 14-24.
September
30th: Appealing to the American Promise
Frederick
Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?," Marable and Mullings,
87-91.
Frederick
Douglass, "What the Black Man Wants," Marable and Mullings,
125-131
Ida
B. Wells-Barnett, Speech Delivered at the National Negro Conference, Marable and
Mullings, 209-212.
The
Niagara Movement, Marable and Mullings, 227-229.
W.
E. B. Dubois, "Close Ranks," Hubert Harrison "The Decent of Du Bois," and
DuBois, "Returning Soldiers," 242-245.
Langston
Hughes, "My America," Marable and Mullings, 280-286,
A.
Phillip Randolph, "Negro March on Washington Movement," Marable and Mullings
333-339.
Thurgood
Marshall, '!he Brown Decision and the Struggle for School Desegregation, Marable
and Mullings, 356-364.
Martin
Luther King, "I Have a Dream," Marable and Mullings,
400-406.
Jesse
Jackson, "Keep Hope Alive," Marable and Mullings, 567-577
October
7th: Fall Break
October14th:
Feminist Beginnings: Liberal, Nationalist, and Radical
Sojourner
Truth, "A'n't I a Woman?," Marable and Mullings, 67-68,
Anna
Julia Cooper, "A Voice from the South," Marable and Mullings,
167-172,
Mary
Church Terrell and Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, The National Association of
Colored Women, 173-178.
A
Negro Woman Speaks, Marable and Mullings, 201-207.
Amy
Jacques Garvey, "Women as Leaders," Marable and Mullings,
274-275.
Alice
Moore Dunbar-Nelson, "The Negro Woman and the Ballot," Marable and Mullings
287-290.
Claudia
Jones, "An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!," Marable and
Mullings, 340-351.
October
21st: Black Nationalism: Origins, Adjustments, and Contemporary
Critics
Martin
Delany, "A Black Nationalist Manifesto," Marable and Mullings,
69-87
Henry
McNeal Turner, "Black Christian Nationalist," Marable and Mullings,
131-134.
Edward
Blyden, "On the African Diaspora," Marable and Mullings,
146-157
Marcus
Garvey, "Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World," "An
Appeal to the Conscience of the Black Race to See Itself," "An Epose of the
Caste System Among Negroes," Marable and Mullings,
259-273.
Stokeley
Carmichael, “What
We Want,”
Marable and Mullings, 442-448.
Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, “Position
Paper on Black Power,”
Marable and Mullings, 442-448.
Black
Panther Party, Platform and Program, Marable and Mullings,
468-472.
Huey
P. Newton, “On
the Defection of Eldridge Cleaver,”
Marable and Mullings, 437-479.
Louis
Farrakhan, Minister Louis Farrakhan Calls for Million Man March,'
<http://finalcall.com/national/anniversary/marchcall.html>
Louis
Farrakhan, Speech at the Million Man March, Marable and Mullings,
615-618
Adolph
Reed, "The Rise of Louis Farrakhan," 37-60.
Adolph
Reed, "Triumph of the Tuskegee Will," 61-63.
October
28th: Black Reds- Race or Class?
Hubert
Harrison, "The Negro and the Nation," Marable and Mullings,
230-233.
Cyril
Briggs, "What the African Blood Brotherhood Stands For," Marable and Mullings
246-251.
Claude
McKay, "Soviet Russia and the Negro," Marable and Mullings,
251-259.
Angelo
Herndon, "Speech to Jury," and "You Cannot Kill the Working Class," Marable and
Mullings, 303-313.
Hosea
Hudson, "The Narrative of Hosea Hudson," Marable and Mullings,
314-319.
W.E.B.DuBois,
"The Salvation of American Negroes Lies in Socialism," Marable and Mullings,
409-419.
Angela
Davis, "I am a Revolutionary Black Woman," Marable and Mullings,
482-486.
The
League of Revolutionary Black Workers, "Our Thing Is Drum," Marable and
Mullings, 486-489.
Henry
Winston, "On Returning to the Struggle" and "A Letter to My Brothers and
Sisters," Marable and Mullings, 503-508.
November
4th: King and the Moral Appeals of the Civil Rights
Movement
Martin
Luther King, "Loving Your Enemies" (reserve)
Martin
Luther King, "A Knock at Midnight" (reserve)
Martin
Luther King, The Drum Major Instinct" (reserve)
Martin
Luther King, "To Atone for Our Sins in Vietnam," Marable and Mullings, 46 1
-468.
November
11th: No
Class
November
18th:Public Intellectual-The Political Thought of James
Baldwin
Fire
Next Time,
All
November
25th: The Political Thought of Malcolm X
Malcolm
X, At the Harvard Law School Forum (reserve)
Malcolm
X, "Message to the Grassroots" (reserve)
Malcolm
X, "Twenty Million Black People in a Political, Economic, and Mental
Prison”
(reserve)
Malcolm
X, "The Ballot or the Bullet”
and "Statement of the Organization of Afro-American Unity," Marable and
Mullings, 427-441.
December
2nd: Right Turn-The Emergence of Black Conservative
Thought
Clarence
Thomas, "Victims and Heroes in the 'Benevolent State"'
(reserve)
Shelby
Steele, "I'm Black, You're White, Who's Innocent?"
(reserve)
Shelby
Steele, "The Memory of Enemies"(reserve)
Glenn
C. Loury, "The Need for Moral Leadership in the Black Community"
(reserve)
Adolph
Reed, "Steele Trap" (reserve)
Adolph
Reed, "Triumph of the Tuskegee Will," 61-63.
Martin
Kilson, "Anatomy of Black Conservatism" (reserve)
December
9th: Modem Black Feminist Thought
Michele
Wallace, "We Would Have to Fight the World," Marable and Mullings,
519-523.
Combahee
River Collective Statement, Marable and Mullings, 524-529
Audre
Lorde, "Age, Race, Class, and Sex," Marable and Mullings,
538-544.
bell
hooks, "Shaping Feminist Theory" Marable and Mullings,
544-550,
African-American
Women In Defense of Themselves, Marable and Mullings,
589-590
June
Jordon, "Can I Get A Witness?," Marable and Mullings,
590-593