The Civil Rights Movement
| Humanities Course | |
|---|---|
| Course Code | CRMO |
| Years Of Operation | 2002-2005 |
| Sites Offered | BRI, BTH, SCZ |
Course Description
From the CTY Course Catalog (2003):
From the Mississippi Delta to the Supreme Court, from the Birmingham prison to the streets of Harlem, the social, economic, spiritual, and ideological ramifications of the Civil Rights Movement are hard to exaggerate. No person or region in the United States was left untouched by African Americans’ demands for justice and equality.
Starting with the early roots of the movement, students examine the disparate ideologies of early civil rights pioneers, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and, later, Marcus Garvey. Turning to the more familiar events of the Fifties and Sixties, students analyze the sometimes conflicting positions and strategies of Civil Rights leaders and organizations ranging from Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., to Angela Davis, and from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to the Black Panthers. They debate the strengths and limitations of choices to work either within the system (as the NAACP did in its early court battles) or outside the system (through non-violent resistance or “by any means necessary”). By the end of the course, students gain an understanding of how activists in the Civil Rights Movement challenged the status quo and thus changed the face of a nation.
