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This First-Year Seminar traces the development of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States over the course of the 20th Century. By exploring some of the major sites of conflict, activism, protest, opposition, and resistance in modern African American History, we will begin to complicate traditional understandings of Black freedom struggles in the United States. Why and how did African Americans mobilize and organize for their rights? How did they imagine citizenship, Black freedom, and equality within the United States? How did these events impact public life and public policy? What are the legacies of the movement? Students will analyze a broad range of primary and secondary source materials, including the writings of W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and more. Additionally, students will watch a series of civil rights films related to the broad themes of the course and will visit local museums and archives as part of a larger experiential component, to better understand the significance of the modern Civil Rights Movement on contemporary American society and culture.