Black America Since the 1960s

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

"Where Do We Go From Here: Black America Since the 1960s In the decades following the formal end of Jim Crow segregation, Black Americans achieved historic gains in political representation, economic success, and cultural influence, yet deepening racial inequality, state violence, and economic precarity persisted. This course examines this paradox, exploring how Black political culture evolved amid deindustrialization, austerity politics, the ascendance of the New Right, and neoliberal governance. Using Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s definition of racism as “the state-sanctioned or extralegal production of group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death,” we will analyze shifting anti-Black ideologies and policies since the 1960s, as well as the ways Black communities have resisted, survived, and thrived despite persistent oppression. Examining a range of primary sources as well as the latest secondary literature, we will study a variety of topics, including Black political representation, environmental justice, the welfare rights movement, Black capitalism, hip-hop culture, the development carceral state, queer activism, and the fight for reparations."