New preps always seem like good ideas…until you have to teach them! But this class didn’t feel like a burden. The students—all undergrads and mostly first and second years—were amazing. Some of them had read a bit in the field of African-American studies, sociology, and some were history majors. Most, however, were not. They worked so hard to learn theoretical precepts and to dive deep into the history of white supremacy in the United States. This class will almost certainly be in my regular rotation for years to come! Here’s a basic overview of what it looked like.

Description

The United States of America suffers from a severe racial crisis: people of color face structural violence, discrimination, disenfranchisement, and economic subjugation.  This crisis has deep historical roots.  The goal of this course is to introduce students to some of the origins and historical influences of this problem; to ascertain why the problem has persisted over time; and when we might expect abolition and reform.  The course draws heavily on primary sources connected to the history of enslavement, abolition, emancipation, civil rights, and identity politics.  However, it also builds on major theoretical and historical frameworks such as critical race theory, critical legal studies, and Black Capitalism.  This is a history of the present.

Basic requirements

Weekly reading responses

Midterm and final exams

Research project: a “syllabus” (like the Ferguson syllabus) that provides resources to historically analyze a contemporary racial crisis.

Foundations (Weeks 1-3)

Nikole Hannah-Jones, The 1619 Project

Essays by W.E.B. Du Bois, Richard Delgado, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Derrick Bell, Adolph Reed, Mark Tushnet, Ian Haney Lopez.

Law Creates Slavery (Week 4)

Case of John Punch, General Court of Virginia (1640).

Excerpts from Colonial Statutes of Virginia (1640-1700)

Excerpts from Kathleen N. Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs (1996)

The Runaway Crisis (Week 5)

Excerpts from Vincent Brown, Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War (2020)

An ‘Act for the Better Ordering of Slaves,’ South Carolina (1701).

Daragh Grant, “‘Civilizing’ the Colonial Subject: The Co-Evolution of State and Slavery in South Carolina,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 57, no. 3 (July, 2015)

Slavery and the Constitution (Week 6)

Excerpts from the United States Constitution (1787) and Bill of Rights (1791)

Somerset v. Stewart (1772)

Correspondence of Anthony Benezet and Benjamin Franklin, 1772.

Benjamin Franklin, “The Somersett Case and the Slave Trade,” London Chronicle, June n.d. (18-20), 1772.

David Waldstreicher, “The Beardian Legacy, the Madisonian Moment, and the Politics of Slavery,” American Political Thought 2, no. 2 (Fall, 2013), 274-82.

Frank D. Cogliano, Thomas Jefferson: Reputation and Legacy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 199-229.

Sean Gallagher, “The Prison of Public Works: Enslaved People and State Formation at Virginia's Chiswell Lead Mines, 1775-1786,” Journal of Southern History (2020).

Nat Turner’s Age (Weeks 7-8)

Excerpts from Thomas R. Gray, The Confessions of Nat Turner (1831)

Excerpts from Christopher Tomlins, In the Matter of Nat Turner: A Speculative History (2022)

Pineville Police Association Records, Volume 1, 1823-40, South Carolina Historical Society.

Elkison v. Deliesseline, 8 Fed. Cas. 32 (1823). 

The Other Reconstruction (Weeks 9-10)

Excerpts from Bradley Proctor, “Whip, Pistol, and Hood: Ku Klux Klan Violence in the Carolinas During Reconstruction,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of North Carolina, 2013.

Excerpts from the KKK “Habeas Corpus” Cases, in William H. Battle, ed., A Report of the Proceedings in the Habeas Corpus Cases… (1870).

Policing the Color Line (Week 11)

Excerpts from Daniel Kato, Liberalizing Lynching: Building a New Racialicized State (2019)

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 567 (1896)

Excerpts from W.E.B. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk (1903)

W.E.B. Du Bois, Paris Exposition (1900), http://www.webdubois.org/wdb-1900exp.html

“A Negro to Die,” Washington Bee, June 6, 1896, 4.

Ida B. Wells, “Lynch Law in America” (1909).

United States v. Shipp, 203 U.S. 563 (1909)

Excerpts from Cheryl I. Harris, “In the Shadow of Plessy,” Journal of Constitutional Law (2005).

Dylan Penningroth, Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights (2023), chapter 7.

Formalism and the Civil Rights Conundrum (Week 12)

United States v. Carolene Products, 304 U.S. 144 (1938)

Swett v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950)

Brown v. Board of Education, 344 U.S. 1 (1954) and Brown II (1955)

Derrick Bell, “Racial Equality: Progressives’ Passion for the Unattainable,” Virginia Law Review 94, no. 2 (2008), 495-520.

Excerpts from Regents of University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978)

Excerpts from Jeffrey Rosen, “The Color-Blind Court,” The American University Law Review (1996)

Excerpts from Garrett Epps, “Of Constitutional Seances and Color-Blindness,” North Carolina Law Review (1995)

The Policing Crisis (Week 13)

Excerpts from Elizabeth Kai Hinton, From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (2016).

Donald J. Trump, “Bring Back the Death Penalty” (1989)

Nancy E. Ryan, Affirmation in Response to Motion to Vacate Judgment of Conviction, People of the State of New York v. Kharey Wise et al. (2002).

Excerpts from Joanna Schwartz, Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable (New York: Viking, 2023.

Ese Olumhense, “20 Years After the NYPD Killing of Amadou Diallo, His Mother and Community Ask: What’s Changed?” New York Magazine (2019).

Bruce Springsteen, “American Skin (41 Shots),” (2001).

N.W.A., “Fuck the Police,” (1989).

Stipulation and Protective Order, Daniels v. City of New York (2003), pp. 5-11, 19-23.

The Backlash (Week 14)

Leah Litman, Kate Shaw, and Ari Berman, “The Rise and Fall of the Voting Rights Act,” Strict Scrutiny Podcast, August 14, 2023.

Andy Kroll, “The Revenge of John Roberts,” Rolling Stone, July 9, 2021.

John Roberts, “Why Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act Should be Retained Unchanged,” January 22, 1982, in John Roberts-William French Smith Correspondence, 1982, pp. 10-14.

William French Smith, “The Voting Rights Act,” The New York Times, March 27, 1982, 23.

Excerpts from Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013)