Women and the Civil Rights Movement with Dr. Elsa Barkley Brown

Key Takeaways

this course examines the US Civil Rights Movement from the vantage point of women considering their involvement in legal campaigns and political struggles as well as the ways in which the Civil Rights Movement impacted women's condition and status and identity often when people think about the Civil Rights Movement they think about the 1950s and 60s the Montgomery Bus Boycott the stins Martin Luther King Jr I Have a Dream speech I'm going to take what historians term a long Civil Rights Movement perspective so we will start with the late 19th century and work our way through the 20th century this will allow us to look at the origins of some of the formal civil rights organizations it will allow us to look at an earlier anti- lynching movement and its relationship to the later modern civil rights move movement and it'll allow us to look at the various legal campaigns that really set the state change the definitions of citizenship and rights and set the stage for the modern Civil Rights Movement we also will extend past the 1950s and 60s to look at how movements like Reproductive Rights movement and the environmental justice movement uh grew out of and were influenced by the Civil Rights Movement throughout the course we will think about various historians debates about the civil rights movement and we'll also think about issues that animate social movement theorist and political activist alike how do people create commitments and sustain commitments over a long period of time to a political movement how do we assess the strengths and weaknesses of various kinds of formal political organizations and how do people with few resources and no vote maximize their political influence these are some of the issues that will take up during the course of the semester in addition we will look at not just how the Civil Rights Movement altered the status of African Americans but how the Civil Rights Movement actually changed the definition of Rights and citizenship for all Americans and really for many people around the globe as well there are many ways that you um might come to an interest in this course and many ways that you might think your way through the course perhaps you just like history and this is a new historical narrative that you'd like to know perhaps you are excited about the possibility of being able to get your hands on some historical documents and work through them and learn how historians analyze them perhaps you're in you are a political activist and you want to see what you can can learn from earlier movements and earlier kinds of organizations there'll be various kinds of ways that you can interact with the course and think your way through the issues that we're doing so what do we do every week in the course um we'll begin each week with an overview I'll give you a short video overviewing the week and then you'll have a list of keywords terms organizations people and a set of web resources to use to learn about those that way we'll all begin on a kind of even ground you already know some US History you know nothing about us history we'll all have a kind of even ground when we get to the videos there'll be about two hours worth of lectures uh each week broken up into small segments and then there'll also be short videos talking about the readings and helping you analyze some of the sources there'll be quizzes for for self- diagnosis uh and also papers that you'll write that will be peer reviewed and one of the important things about the course will be the opportunity to participate in a discussion forum with wide ranges of people of different expertise and experience and talk about history analyze the documents together or if you wish think about the Contemporary political implications of what we're doing those discussion fors will be monitored and occasionally I'll interject into them a video or something that helps us think through some of the issues that you raise this is a good opportunity to think about history to think about how historians work and to think about issues about citizenship and rights which are still important to all of us around the globe