3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

Through an intensive and in-depth reading of theorists, thinkers, historians, and political scientists, this course will take students through the deeply interconnected story of American race relations and labor politics. We will examine primary source material, such as the essays of Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, the speeches of A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, and Martin Luther King, Jr., the memoirs of Charles Denby and Angelo Herndon, and the pamphlets of Claudia Jones; we will read historical accounts which situate these figures in their context; and we will engage critically with the fundamental topic: in the United States, what is the relationship between race and class; racism and exploitation; civil rights and labor activism? Toward the end of the course, we will examine recent scholarship that has returned to these themes to show how deeply imbricated America—its people, its institutions, its political economy—remains to this history.