African American Studies

Recommended Prerequisite: None

Grades Offered: 9 – 12

Credit: ½ - 1

SDE Course Code: 3442

MNPS Course Code: SST5520

Course Description

This course is designed for students who desire a more in-depth study of Black History than they can obtain from other general history classes. Through this course students discover how African Americans have always been an integral part of the American experience from their African roots through slavery and emancipation, Civil War and Reconstruction, the Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Era into contemporary America.

Course of Study

African Kingdoms

Ghana
Mali
Songhay
Timbuktu
Egypt
Nubia
Ethiopa

The African Way of Life

Political Institutions
Economic Life
Social Organization
Religion
The Arts
The Transplantation of African Culture

The Slave Trade and the New World

European and Asian Interest
Africans in the New World
The Big Business of Slave Trading
Middle Passage
The African Holocaust
The Plantation System

Colonial Slavery

o Virginia and Maryland

o The Carolinas and Georgia

o The Middle Colonies

o Africans in Colonial New England

Impact of the American Revolution & The New Republic

Influence of the African-American
Closing of the slave trade
Slavery and the Industrial Revolution

Blacks and Manifest Destiny

Frontier Influences
Black Pioneers
Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom
Persistence the Domestic Slave Trade

Slavery and Intersectional Strife

The Peculiar Institution of the South
Sectional Differences
The North Attacks
Black Abolitionists
Underground Railroad
The South Strikes Back

Civil War

African Americans and Federal Policy
Moving toward Freedom
Confederate Policy
The Emancipation Proclamation
African Americans fighting for the Union

Reconstruction

o 13^th Amendment

o 14^th Amendment

o 15^th Amendment

o Freedman’s Bureau

o Voting Restrictions

o Rise of the Ku Klux Klan

· Philanthropy and Self-Help

o Northern Philanthropy and African American Education

o Booker T. Washington

o W.E.B. Du Bois

o Marcus Garvey

· World War I

o Enlistment of African-Americans

o Successes of Black Soldiers

o Service Overseas

o On the Home Front

· The Harlem Renaissance

o Poets

o Writers

o Musicians

The New Deal

Depression
Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet”
Government Agencies and Relief for African Americans
African Americans and Labor Union

World War II

o Continued Segregation of troops

o Successes of Black Soldiers

o Service Overseas

o On the Home Front

o Post War Problems

· The Civil Rights Movement

o Groups & Organization (SNCC, SCLC, Nation of Islam, Black Panthers, NAACP)

o Individuals (Stokely Carmichael, Huey Newton, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Ralph Abernathy, Diane Nash, John Lewis)

o March on Washington

o Montgomery Bus Boycotts

o Nashville Sit ins

o Tactics & Strategies.

o African Americans involvement in Vietnam

African Americans Entering A New Millennium

The Los Angeles Riots
Emergence of Black Political Candidates
Million Man March
African Americans & The Gulf Wars
Political & Religious Leaders (Colin Powell, Louis Farrakhan, Jessie Jackson, Condeleeza Rice, Al Sharpton, Clarence Thomas, Allen Keyes, Thomas Sowell)
Rainbow Coalition
Athletes, Entertainers, Rap and the Hip-Hop Culture
Project 21

Reading: In addition to use of the textbook, students are expected to read from a variety of sources including essays, studies, newspapers/periodicals, maps, charts, graphs, political cartoons, and government documents. Students are expected to gain literal understanding of readings and also interpret, analyze, and evaluate information from readings.

Writing: Students are expected to write regularly and effectively in various domains including: narrative, descriptive, persuasive, analytical, and practical. Suggested written assignments include: essays, journals, book reviews, document based questions, journals and research papers.