The Black Freedom Movement: Martin Luther King to Louis Farrakhan
Academic Responsibility: Dr Sam Hitchmough
Module Aims
The module builds on the content of the Year Two Civil War to Civil Rights module by exploring and developing the issue of race in modern America. An important theory suggests that the issue of race is at the heart of the "American Dilemma" - the struggle between the democratic ideals of equality in the American creed and the obvious lack of equality in the treatment of black Americans. The module explores modern African-American racial protest as a challenge to this dilemma which raises questions of national identity and character, inclusion and exclusion amid a host of other issues.
Module Content
The Civil Rights Movement is assessed from its "classic" beginnings in the Montgomery Bus Boycott through the Little Rock crisis, sit-in movement and Freedom Rides to the city campaigns led by Martin Luther King in Albany, Birmingham and Selma, culminating in the Civil Rights Bill and Voting Rights Act. The nature of the movement will be assessed in terms of leadership, the role of women, its relationship with the media, its moral and religious appeal and its protest tactics. Particular attention is paid to the iconic Martin Luther King and the evolution and development of his philosophy.
In Term Two the module focuses on the period since 1965 and the end of the "classic" Civil Rights Movement narrative. The strengths, weaknesses and reasons for the movement's disintegration in the mid-late 1960s is set against the rising Black Power movement, the Black Panther Party, race visiting and the Vietnam War. A detailed analysis of the later Martin Luther King and suggestions of a growing radicalism is balanced by discussions of alternative philosophies and strategies for progress as forwarded by Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam, cultural and political nationalists within the Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party.
The module then moves on to look at the post-Civil Rights/Black Power landscape and assesses leaders such as Jesse Jackson and Minister Louis Farrakhan, asking whether he is now the most representative spokesperson for black America. Current issues such as reparations for slavery highlighted most recently in the events surrounding the UN conference on racism in summer 2001, black electoral politics, race riots and the myth and meaning of Martin Luther King in American national memory will all be addressed.
The approach of the module is broadly chronological in order not just to explore pivotal events but to identify characteristics of black protest and experience as well as discussing the changing nature of, and perspectives on, race relations.
Assessment
Students have a choice of either two assignments of 2500 words each or one assignment of 5000 words. There is no examination.